Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

1. Post Office (Borrowing) Act 1972.
2. Pensioners Payments and National Insurance Contributions Act 1972.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Secondary Schools

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the average cost of providing a new secondary school, and the average cost of a secondary school place.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): To build a typical school for 900 pupils aged 11 to 18 costs just over £600,000, at an average cost per place of about £675. This figure, like the £20 million for the improvement of old secondary schools announced in the recent White Paper, excludes land, fees and equipment, which together add about one-third to the cost.

Mr. Hardy: Does not that answer show that the proposed extra allocation of money for secondary school buildings will be woefully inadequate in the face of growing demand? Would it not be better to describe this proposal as gimmickry?

Mrs. Thatcher: Certainly not. £20 million is not gimmickry. Indeed, if it were, it compares very well with the last two programmes left to me by the Labour Government which consisted of under £3 million each year for secondary school improvements.

Mr. Spearing: Going back to the sum of £600, does the right hon. Lady agree that if that were paid back over the time at which a school was likely to exist the cost of providing places would be relatively small compared with the cost of providing total education for the pupils concerned over that period?

Mrs. Thatcher: Capital costs spread over a longer period are usually a lesser draw on the Exchequer than recurrent costs; but greater capital costs usually give rise to increased recurring capital costs, too.

London Allowance

Mr. Deakins: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations she has received from teachers about further negotiations on the London allowance after the present period of incomes freeze; and what replies she has sent.

Mr. Barnes: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what further representations she has received about the London allowance for teachers; and what replies she has sent.

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will now allow the negotiations to be reopened on the London teachers' allowance.

Mrs. Thatcher: Since my hon. Friend's written answer on 30th November to the Question by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis), I have received about 250 further letters from teachers, some dealing with future negotiations. In reply, I have drawn attention to the statement on 20th November by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer about negotiations during the standstill, and I have pointed out that any new offer from the management panels will need to take account of the second stage of counter-inflation strategy. —[Vol. 847, c. 241; Vol. 847, c. 927.]

Mr. Deakins: Will the Secretary of State undertake at the end of the freeze not to obstruct any negotiations between the management panel and the teachers on this vitally important subject, as this seems to be the only way of reducing the high turnover of young teachers in many of the London boroughs, including Waltham Forest.

Mrs. Thatcher: We do not yet know what will happen after this stage of the freeze is over. This was pointed out in the statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore, we are in a somewhat difficult position at the moment. I should point out that everything that has happened so far has been in accordance with the legislation agreed by both parties.

Mr. Barnes: Does the Secretary of State agree that there is a feeling of some anger among teachers in London that the negotiations for the revised allowance were deliberately prevented from taking place before the standstill came into force? Does she not think that it is only fair that, when the revised allowance is agreed, it should be backdated to 1st November?

Mrs. Thatcher: No. An offer was made on 3rd November, which was accepted by some teachers and was in fact implemented. Others rejected it and were caught by the freeze.

Mr. Moyle: Does the right hon. Lady agree that there is a problem of retaining young teachers in London, particularly about the point when they get married, due to the high costs of housing and travelling? If she will not tell the House how she will solve the problem, may I ask her to give some indication when she will solve it?

Mrs. Thatcher: The problems in London are no greater than those in other big cities. The turnover is no worse and the proportion of young teachers is no higher. Therefore, these problems are peculiar not only to London, but to other large cities.

Mr. Leonard: As the freeze came into operation, in effect, one month earlier for London teachers than for other groups of workers, will the right hon. Lady seek to ensure that for London teachers the freeze should end one month earlier?

Mrs. Thatcher: The hon. Gentleman is not correct. An offer was made on 3rd November, three days before the freeze came into effect. Some teachers accepted the offer and their increases have been put into effect.

Nursery Education

Mr. Meacher: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what consultations she has had with local authorities concerning her White Paper on nursery education.

Mrs. Thatcher: In framing the proposals in the White Paper which I presented to Parliament on 6th December I took careful account of the views that local authorities and others had expressed to me on the topics it covers, including nursery education.

Mr. Meacher: Will the right hon. Lady explain to local authorities how she can afford a large increase in nursery education while spending almost nothing on comprehensive schools? Has the right hon. Lady consulted local authorities about her proposal to cut the number of teachers in training by almost half? Will not this have the worst effects on oversized classes in deprived areas, thus nullifying most of the advantages of her nursery school proposals?

Mrs. Thatcher: The short answer to the last point is "No". There will be more than 110,000 extra teachers over the period covered in the White Paper, a substantial proportion being teachers for nursery education. I am glad the hon. Gentleman is pleased that there is to be more expenditure on nursery schools. No Government have found money especially to enable schools to change from their existing character into comprehensive schools, but a lot of changes have been brought about by raising of the school leaving age building programme, itself a large one, and in some cases through the secondary school basic needs programme which, where it is large, enables some reorganisation changes to come about.

Sir R. Cary: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether, as a sequel to her splendid work in regard to primary schools, nursery education is being made a supplementary addition to that work?

Mrs. Thatcher: Yes, indeed. A very important part of pre-school education is


provided by an earlier start than five. This enables young children to profit fully from their primary education when they start.

Mr. Hattersley: The right hon. Lady will recall that in paragraph 28 of the White Paper she expresses the hope that education authorities will concentrate their primary or initial nursery effort on areas within their authorities which have special needs. What does she propose to do about local authorities who do not respond to that wish?

Mrs. Thatcher: May I first welcome the hon. Gentleman in his new capacity? I think that this is his first Question Time in his new appointment. I hope that he will enjoy working with my Department as much as I do.
On the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I believe that almost all local authorities will respond to that wish. They have not been slow to appreciate the problems of the socially deprived areas, and I shall be very suprised if we receive anything less than maximum cooperation from the local education authorities. We shall be able to see from the bids they put in, because in the draft circular we have specifically asked them to take account of the needs of these areas.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Will the right hon Lady guarantee that people north of the Trent will get a fair share of the money that is to be spent, and that she will not allow the greater proportion of it to go to the South-East?

Mrs. Thatcher: I hope that every region which has problem areas will have a fair share, as will other parts of the country. The North profited very much from the raising of the school leaving age programme which this Government put through.

Mr. Winterton: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children under five are attending nursery schools for primary and infant schools at the latest convenient date; and how this figure compares with those for the previous four years on the same date.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): In January 1972 there were 351,000 pupils under five in

maintained schools in England and Wales. This compares with figures of 257,000 in 1968, 275,000 in 1969, 291,000 in 1970 and 318,000 in 1971.

Mr. Winterton: I thank my hon. Friend for that encouraging reply, although I am not totally satisfied with it. May I ask him and my right hon. Friend to listen to the pleas of local people who are delighted by what the Government have set out in the recently issued White Paper? Is my hon. Friend able to say what increase over the next 12 months in the provision for nursery education places?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am glad to have partially satisfied my hon. Friend. With regard to the future, a circular has been sent to education authorities and we are waiting for replies in order to assess their needs.

Miss Lestor: I assure the hon. Gentleman that he has not satisfied me on this question. Bearing in mind the quite useful hint that is given in the White Paper about bringing nursery regulations into primary schools where there are under-fives and rising-fives, can the hon. Gentleman say to what extent money has been allocated specifically for this purpose? I ask that because the circumstances under which children are received in primary schools from pre-schools are not necessarily governed by the regulations that apply to nursery schools. If there are to be more under-fives and rising-fives in primary schools, a lot of money must be spent in order to apply to those classrooms the same conditions and regulations that apply in nursery schools, otherwise we shall be getting nursery education on the cheap.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: As a first step the Government propose to authorise a special building programme of £15 million each in the years 1974–75 and 1975–76. The question of primary schools will also be fully considered.

Mr. Fell: I wonder whether my hon. Friend will help me. An enormous emphasis is now being put on nursery and primary schools. Can my hon. Friend say how fitted the teachers in these schools are to teach Christian ethics to the children under their control?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not think that the matter of teaching Christian


ethics comes within the scope of the Department's authority.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated cost of her proposals for education for the under fives as contained in Section 3 of Education, A Framework of Expansion, Cmnd. Paper No. 5174, taking into account changes in building costs, teachers salaries etc., between now and 1976–77.

Mrs. Thatcher: The effect of the programme announced in the White Paper will be to increase the total current expenditure on the under 5s in England and Wales from about £42 million last year to about £65 million in 1976–77 at constant prices. In addition the Government propose to authorise special building programmes of £15 million each in 1974–75 and 1975–76 as the first step towards the provision of additional accommodation.

Mr. Hamilton: However welcome the programme is, does the right hon. Lady not agree that the £15 million provision for 1974–75 could be spent quite easily in the deprived areas alone, but that it is precisely those areas which are likely to contain inarticulate parents who will not bring the pressure on to the local authorities—which was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was getting at in his question from the Front Bench? But in any event, the programme will not be enough to meet the new increased demand, which has increased since the Plowden Committee made its recommendations and estimates several years ago. Therefore, will not the right hon. Lady have another look at the matter? We are very grateful for the progress that has been made, but it is still not nearly enough.

Mrs. Thatcher: As the hon. Gentleman will be the first to appreciate, the deprived areas have been the ones to benefit from the urban programmes under both Governments; these programmes have resulted in a large number of nursery school places in these areas. I have great faith that the local authorities will take the needs of those areas into special account when making their bids. The special building programmes announced in the White Paper are the first two of a 10-year programme, at the end of which

we shall hope to have met the Plowden demand. The programme should be considered as a 10-year programme, which no other Government have even been able to contemplate starting.

Miss Lestor: The right hon. Lady is, of course, aware that I, and I think everyone on this side of the House, welcome the expansion of nursery education. In the White Paper, she stresses the question of disadvantaged children, which has already been raised, and, quite rightly, she has just mentioned the urban aid programme. But is she not aware that large numbers of children in areas that are called deprived are children in day nurseries and many children with unregistered child minders, and that their need, although it is for nursery education, is for a policy that caters for the child whose mother has to go out to work? Does the right hon. Lady not agree that we are not meeting their educational needs unless we consider pre-school education as a whole? Some special provision must be made for those children whose need cannot be met by part-time nursery education.

Mrs. Thatcher: The White Paper also refers to pre-school playgroups, because we appreciated that we had to consider pre-school education and social requirements as a whole as well. There are some schemes in which nursery schools have co-operated with day nurseries, so that there is educational provision—not enough, yet, I agree—and day nursery care as well. The latter, of course, comes under the Department of Health and Social Security, but we try as much as we can to co-ordinate our activities with regard to this group.

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she proposes to withdraw Circular 8/60.

Mrs. Thatcher: Early in the New Year.

Mr. Jones: I thank the right hon. Lady for that welcome reply. What special measures can she take to ensure that the average working-class child from the average council estate will get a fair share of the expanding nursery school provision? Does she, for example, favour the widespread provision of day nurseries and nursery schools or classes


in those areas where the expansion may be missed by the working-class child?

Mrs. Thatcher: That will be dealt with in the new circular which is going out, which will ask for bids particularly from problem areas. I believe that local authorities will take into account in making those bids the points that the hon. Gentleman has made.

Mr. Grylls: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many part-time nursery school places have been provided between June 1970 and December 1972; and what is her estimate of the number which will be provided by 1980.

Mrs. Thatcher: The number of children under five years of age attending part-time in maintained schools in England and Wales rose from 46,000 in January 1970 to 72,000 in January 1972. I estimate that the number will increase to over 900,000 by 1981–82.

Mr. Grylls: While congratulating my right hon. Friend on her satisfactory report on progress in nursery education, and while I recognise that there is a need in the large cities, may I ask her to bear in mind that there is also a need in county areas like Surrey?

Mrs. Thatcher: I think there is certainly a need in some of the rural areas, but county areas like Surrey will, I am afraid, not be among the first to benefit from the nursery schools programme, for reasons which I am sure will be understood.

Nursery Nurses

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many holders of the Nursery Nurses' Examination Board qualification are currently employed in maintained nursery schools and classes.

Mrs. Thatcher: In England and Wales, 4,104 in January 1972. In addition 1,645 were helping in infant classes.

Miss Lestor: The right hon. Lady will be aware that one of the things that inhibits young girls from going in for training for the NNEB qualification is the appalling salary that they receive at the end of their training? I recognise that that is not altogether the right hon.

Lady's responsibility, but can she say what is being done about changing the quality of training for NNEB qualification? The right hon. Lady hints at this in paragraph 31 of the White Paper, which says that more of these people are to be used in nursery schools and classes. What efforts are being made to attract young men into training, both for work in nursery schools, and for the NNEB qualification?

Mrs. Thatcher: Pay is negotiated through the Whitley Council. The pay for those aged 20 and over is between £726 and £999 a year.
On the question of more courses, we shall have to operate through the local education authorities which are, of course, in charge of them, and we hope that they will respond as quickly as possible through the provision of courses leading to the NNEB certificate.
As regards young men coming into training, they can take a nursery option in the colleges of education that are specialising in primary school work, or in certificated training for teachers but have a nursery option. That is probably the most likely way they would come in.

Grammar Schools

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many completely new grammar schools have been built in England and Wales since the war; when the Department last authorised the building of a new grammar school; and how many times since then a local authority has been refused permission to build a grammar school.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Four hundred and eleven, Sir, the last of which was programmed in 1964 to start in 1967–68. Since then no proposals to build new grammar schools have been submitted by local authorities.

Mr. Montgomery: If a local authority decides that it would like a new grammar school in its area, and if a proposal is put to the Department, will it be looked upon favourably?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Any proposal for a new grammar school would, of course, be considered on its merits. It would be subject to the procedures laid down


under Section 13 of the Education Act, including the giving of public notice.

Mr. Stokes: Is my hon. Friend aware that while the public generally are grateful for what the Government have done to maintain the great grammar schools of this country they want to ensure that these schools continue to be supported by the Government, and also that sufficient new ones are to be built?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I note my hon. Friend's remarks.

Universities (Quinquennial Grants)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she is satisfied with the working of the system of quinquennial grants for the universities; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Thatcher: I believe that the present system has great advantages both for the Government and for the universities. The University Grants Committee and I are always ready to consider constructive suggestions for improving it.

Mr. Dalyell: Here is one constructive suggestion. The university quinquennial system has served this country well, but has not the time come, at any rate in some universities, to put into operation a rather more sensitive rolling programme, particularly to help finance research and post-graduate work?

Mrs. Thatcher: The trouble about some constructive suggestions is that they are not always universally welcomed. If there were to be a change it would have to be done in consultation with and the full agreement of the University Grants Committee. I have said that we are always ready to consider new suggestions for improving the system.

Mr. Deakins: Is there not a case for introducing a quinquennial system in university financing so as to bring that and the control of that financing into line with the rest of public expenditure by means of the public expenditure surveys?

Mrs. Thatcher: There may be a case for that. There is also a case for having a specific quinquennium when both the university grants committee and the universities know exactly where they can go. There are arguments on both sides,

but if we changed from what we have to something different, it would have to be with the broad agreement of the relevant committees and specific universities.

Mr. Robert Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science to what extent, in allocating the forthcoming quinquennial estimates to the University Grants Committee, she took account of the need to stimulate research and teaching on developments arising out of North Sea oil exploration.

Mrs. Thatcher: When settling the grants for the 1972–77 quinquennium I took account of the University Grants Committee's advice on the whole range of university development. It is now for the committee and the institutions to allocate and spend the grants according to their view of the priorities.

Mr. Hughes: Is the right hon. Lady not aware of the crucial need to stimulate research and teaching of the technological developments associated with North Sea oil? Is she not further aware that the needs of the universities will not be best served if they have to rely entirely on grants from private sources or on individual Government grants for specific but sporadic projects? In view of the importance of this matter to the Scottish universities, will the right hon. Lady not look at it again?

Mrs. Thatcher: The University Grants Committee does the allocation between the universities. I have no control over that. The committee is well aware of the problems which the hon. Gentleman has raised and I believe that it does its best to meet them. Recurrent expenditure can also be met by grants from the Science Research Council. There are, therefore, in effect, two Government sources as well as private sources for expenditure on this kind of research.

Mr. Buchan: Does the right hon. Lady not agree that the point here is that a new situation has developed in which the technological problems associated with this new industry are of such a kind that if we made the right kind of investment through academic institutions in research into this activity it would have a tremendous spin-off effect on the Scottish economy? There is, for example, the under-sea problem, the stormy water


problem, and the steel problem all of which are closely linked with the economic problems involved with Scottish industrial development.

Mrs. Thatcher: I agree, but it is also likely that the University Grants Committee is aware of the opportunities and that the universities themselves, which are always anxious to meet the requirements for new research and new technological challenge, have included these in their bids.
With regard to stormy waters and other environmental and oceanographic problems, a good deal of research is done on these through the National Environmental Research Council, whose work has been particularly helpful to those who are employed on oil rigs in the North Sea.

Mr. Leadbitter: Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that there is a reasonable growth rate in the provision of financial support from the University Grants Committee? I understand that one of the major problems in the areas of research and development is that during the last few years there has been a plateauing of financial provision instead of a substantial growth in this field. Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that the support system is adequate to meet the request of my hon. Friends?

Mrs. Thatcher: Expenditure plateaux are unknown in education. They are always rising curves. The new quinquennial settlement for the universities follows that habit.

Fitzwilliam Junior Mixed School, Mexborough

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will now agree to bring forward the starting date for a replacement for the Fitzwilliam Junior Mixed School, Swinton, Mexborough, in view of the distance pupils have to travel for their school meal.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I cannot add to the reply given by my predecessor to the hon. Member's Question on 26th October.—[Vol. 843, c. 386.]

Mr. Wainwright: Does the hon. Gentleman realise how disappointing it is to hear those words again? Will he take into account the fact that this school was built in 1853 and that the children

have to walk 400 yards along a very busy thoroughfare to the main building to have their school meal, and then walk back again, through all kinds of inclement weather? We shall probably be having sleet, snow and heavy rain in the near future, and even in the summer the children will get wet through walking for their school meal. Will the hon. Gentleman either supply some suitable clothing for the children to use when necessary during very inclement weather or make a special allocation to the West Riding County Council for a new school as soon as possible?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's anxiety about the welfare of schoolchildren in his constituency. But it is for the West Riding Education Authority, in the first place, to suggest the priority that should be given to projects. In the past it has given other projects a higher priority, but my right hon. Friend will certainly consider its claims carefully, along with other proposals which are submitted, in the preliminary list of projects which are expected to start in 1975–76. I am afraid that we have no power to make grants for clothing.

Museums and Galleries (Admission Charges)

Mr. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will consult the trustees of the National Museums and Galleries about the most suitable date for imposing entrance charges after the end of the freeze.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: No, Sir, but the trustees will of course be given the longest possible notice of the date to enable them to make the necessary arrangements.

Mr. Strauss: Is the Under-Secretary aware that the Trustees of the British Museum have recently, if belatedly, declared their strong opposition to the imposition of these charges? Now the trustees of all the national museums and galleries in the British Isles have shown their opposition to this Philistine policy and, as they would plainly like to see an indefinite postponement of the implementation of this policy, does not the Under-Secretary, who is a civilised and cultured person, agree that they are right?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful for that tribute of being civilised and cultured, as indeed is the right hon. Gentleman. Regarding the policy issues, I am afraid that these were settled with the passing of the Museums and Galleries Admission Charges Act, and this is the law of the land.

Mr. Faulds: Since the hon. Gentleman's welcome accession to office, on this universally deplored measure which I cannot believe he supports, why has he not talked some sense—he is a greater talker, after all—into the thick skulls of his two departmental bosses, that disposable Lord in the other place and that lamentable Lady here.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Those remarks by the hon. Gentleman were neither cultured nor civilised. I should like him to get this matter in perspective and to consider the question of charges in the context of the record amount of money that my noble Friend Lord Eccles has obtained for the arts, including £6 million only yesterday for the expanded Covent Garden site, which will give him a claim to be considered the modern Maecenas of our age.

Mr. William Hannan: If the hon. Gentleman must have a date, may I suggest 30th February 1973, and the same date in any succeeding year?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I take note of the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, which will be noted in the Department.

Polytechnic Students

Mr. Grylls: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many full-time and part-time students she expects to be in the polytechnics in the year 1975–76.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Estimates for individual years and for a particular group of institutions are bound to be uncertain. On the basis of information up to 1971, the figures might be of the order of 90,000–100,000 and 75,000–85,000 respectively.

Mr. Grylls: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that, unlike the previous Government, which gave birth to the polytechnics but then starved them, the extra money being spent by

the present Government in the polytechnics is very much welcomed in higher education generally? Will he pay special attention to getting more money for the expansion of library facilities in the new polytechnics, which are very short of money.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those encouraging remarks. May I, in turn, remind him that building projects due for completion between 1971 and 1975, which will cost £27 million, will add substantially to the capacity. The pace of expansion has now been stepped up. It is up to the authorities of the polytechnics to decide, within their budget, to what they will give priority. Certainly there is no point in having polytechnics without any books.

Mr. Moyle: Will the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity of telling the House now when the Government intend to produce a White Paper saying what they intend to do for those who will not be attending any polytechnic or other institution of higher learning, whether part time or full time, who amount to about 78 per cent. of the 16–19 age group? It is not sufficient for the Government merely to identify a gap.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: One White Paper per month is probably enough.

Mr. Winterton: Will my hon. Friend say what attention he is giving to the provision of residential accommodation for students attending polytechnics, and whether he will issue further advice to local authorities and others concerned to encourage as many as possible of those attending polytechnics to attend the local polytechnic rather than a polytechnic which is many miles away from their homes?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: We have already authorised residential expenditure for 1973–74 for 1,650 extra places. £2 million for residential projects will go to polytechnics and another £1 million will go to non-polytechnic projects. In 1974–75 that sum will rise to £5 million. With regard to students attending colleges and universities nearer their homes, that is a question which, under our present system, must be left to the individual choices of the students involved, but certainly the whole question is being studied within the Department.

St. John's Primary School, Kingston

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will approve St. John's Primary School, Kingston in the next programme for rebuilding.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: My right hon. Friend is considering the Kingston local education authority's proposal to replace this school in the programme of work due to start in 1975–76.

Mr. Lamont: May I remind my hon. Friend that the Kingston council attaches considerable importance to replacing the school? It has no changing facilities, no dining facilities and no assembly hall, the toilets are outside and all the classrooms are extremely restrictive. From our civilised and cultured Under-Secretary, may we please have a civilised school?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The basic difficulty is that the Kingston authority is such a civilised and cultured authority that it has made excellent progress in programming its primary school replacements. Accordingly, in the 1972–73 lists only one project could be allowed, and the authority itself put St. John's second in the order of priority.

Teaching Profession

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science in the light of the White Paper on Education. "A Framework for Expansion", what plans she has to raise the standard to be achieved by those wishing to enter the teaching profession.

Mrs. Thatcher: The proposed new three-year courses leading to a degree and a teaching qualification will require higher minimum entry standards than the present three-year courses. It will be necessary, however, for the present certificate courses to continue for a transitional period. Competition for entry is already becoming keener. Forty per cent. have two A levels and 28 per cent. have one A level.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am grateful for that reply, but would my right hon. Friend not agree that the effectiveness of teacher training depends upon the quality

of person coming forward? Does she feel that sufficient emphasis is being placed upon career opportunities in education?

Mrs. Thatcher: I agree with the first part of that question, and I hope that we are putting emphasis on career opportunities in education. The Burnham settlement before last was a structural settlement and had just that objective in view.

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of the teaching force in maintained schools in England and Wales changed their schools or entered or left the profession in the year 1971.

Mrs. Thatcher: In the year ended 31st March 1971, entrants and re-entrants amounted to 15–0 per cent. of the teaching force: 9·1 per cent. retired or left the profession. Information on change of school is not available.

Mr. Spearing: Does the right hon. Lady agree that part of the quality of education in any one school depends on the extent to which the staff do or do not turn over in numbers? Is is not part of her responsibility to find out what that turnover is, particularly in areas such as London, so that she can discharge her responsibility for maintaining reasonable education standards? Will she now make investigations into the matter?

Mrs. Thatcher: From time to time we do spot checks, which show that the turnover in some other authorities is much greater than in London.

Totally Deprived Schools

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many totally deprived junior schools there are at present in use within the county borough of St. Helens and what is the age of each such school.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: There are no "totally deprived" schools. In the country as a whole some 570 schools have been designated as schools of exceptional difficulty for the purpose of a special salary addition to teachers but there is, as the hon. Gentleman will know, none in St. Helens.

Mr. Spriggs: I regret that the hon. Gentleman is not aware that there are totally deprived schools in St. Helens. I should like him to convey to his right hon. Friend an invitation from me and from the management committee of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic School, St. Helens, to visit that school and others where infants and juniors are being taught in conditions reminiscent of workhouses of the Dickensian age. I appeal to the right hon. Lady to give some time to see for herself what teaching staff and children have to put up with in this day and age. I appeal to the hon. Gentleman not to be so complacent in his replies but to get off his behind and do something about it.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: At least I have now complied with the first part of the hon. Gentleman's exhortation. There are 11 old primary schools in St. Helens, but the hon. Gentleman must be fair. One of the difficulties in replacing these has been the extreme difficulty in acquiring alternative sites in the area for new buildings. Attempts have been made with regard to four schools. With regard to three of the schools, Moss Bank's future is uncertain because of redevelopment, and the school has only two classes; St. Austin's is being remodelled with money from the minor works programme; and Windleshaw has been submitted for the next preliminary list which my right hon. Friend is now considering for projects to start in 1975–76.

Minor Works Allocation

Mr. Adam Butler: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will revise the minor works allocations for 1973–74, in the light of the fact that many local education authorities, with the authorisation of her Department, have brought forward into 1972–73 much of their allocations for that year: and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Thatcher: Minor works allocations for 1972–74, at £92 million, are already 20 per cent. greater in real terms than in the previous two years. I am, however, increasing the allocations of some local education authorities to meet local shortages of primary school places.

Mr. Butler: I welcome that announcement, because I know that it affects the county of Leicestershire among others

and is evidence of the Government's attitude towards education expenditure. But is my right hon. Friend aware that the £50,000 which she has allocated to Leicestershire is the equivalent of only one primary school project and that, due to the population growth in that county, the greatest part of next year's allocation will go to mobile classrooms, to the detriment of primary school replacement and modernisation?

Mrs. Thatcher: We are very much aware that counties like Leicestershire have had great problems because they have been taking many children who have moved out from city centres. This is one reason which has led us to increase the allocation. The total increase, I am happy to inform my hon. Friend, will be £2.5 million in England and Wales. We will be informing the local education authorities shortly of their share.

Mr. Hattersley: Has the right hon. Lady recently had replies from local authorities about what they describe as the "flexible use" of the minor works programme? Does she contemplate returning to what seems to me the sensible process of allowing the minor works programme to be used for certain improvements in old schools?

Mrs. Thatcher: The minor works programmes are completely flexible. The local education authorities can use them as they wish; I have no control over how they use the minor works programmes. The flexibility to which the right hon. Gentleman is referring is between the minor works and the capital major programmes, which is a different matter.

Schools Reorganisation (Goole)

Dr. Marshall: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will now approve the scheme submitted to her by the West Riding Education Authority for reorganisation of schools in the Goole district in September 1973.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I understand that the local education authority is considering some limited revision of the proposals, related to the precise age-range of some of the schools as expressed in the public notices. Until she has received


further information, my right hon. Friend will not, in fact, make her decision.

Dr. Marshall: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that until the scheme is approved for reorganisation next September there will be considerable uncertainty because no new appointments of teaching staff can be made? Also if the scheme is not approved for next September it will mean almost an emergency reimposition of totally undesirable selection procedures for the present year.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I note those points which have been made by the hon. Gentleman, but I think he will agree that if slightly revised proposals are submitted a further period of two months must be allowed to elapse for the submission of any objections. That is required by law.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Mitchell, Question No. 22.

Mr. Dormand: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Hon. Members who have Questions Nos. 22, 23 and 24 on the Order Paper will be asking their second Questions, whereas I, with Question No. 25—

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I have the point of order at the end of Question Time, please?

Special Education

Mr. Dormand: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what consultations she intends to have with local education authorities concerning her proposals in the White Paper on Special Education.

Mrs. Thatcher: I already have views on present priorities derived from local education authorities' bids for current special school building programmes, their waiting lists for special school places and other indications of need. Priorities will be reviewed regularly in the light of the projects submitted for future programmes and of changes in the demand for places.

Mr. Dormand: Does not the scant attention given in the White Paper to special education demonstrate yet again the little interest the Government show in this neglected part of education? How does the right hon. Lady hope to convince the local education authorities that the provisions mentioned in the White Paper

will meet the needs? Does not she agree that the building programme for special schools proposed in the White Paper is totally inadequate? Is not the lack of any reference to the training of specialist teachers a most serious omission?

Mrs. Thatcher: There had been a number of other reports on particular aspects of special education long before the White Paper came out. I think that in most places the substantial increase in capital programmes for special schools has been widely welcomed.

ROME

Mr. Meacher: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to pay an official visit to Rome.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): No, Sir. I paid an official visit to Rome from 2nd to 5th October.

Mr. Meacher: When the right hon. Gentleman does so, will he discuss European regional policy in the Mezzogiorno and Northern Britain? Will he also make it clear whether he intends to defy the Commission in maintaining the Industry Act levels of regional aid, or, if he is forced to submit, how will he save the regions from that which he implicitly acknowledges will otherwise be a sharp decline?

The Prime Minister: That has nothing whatever to do with Rome. Our position on regional policy is well known.

Sir Gilbert Longden: If my right hon. Friend goes to Italy will he remind the Prime Minister of Italy of the joint declaration of April 1969, made by the then Prime Minister of Britain and the then President of Italy, in which it was stated that
only a united Europe can make its due contribution to peace, prosperity and international co-operation … Britain and Italy believe that the common interests of our continent, its security and its prosperity demand union.
Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that those admirable sentiments are still those of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, they were reaffirmed by the present Prime Minister of Italy and myself during my visit to Rome last October.

Mr. Fernyhough: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it would be appropriate for him to visit that part of Europe? If he went to Rome he might be able to call upon the Pope, and would it not be helpful if he were to discuss with the Pope what initiative the British Government could take towards ending the foul war in Vietnam and bringing peace there?

The Prime Minister: I discussed these, amongst other matters, with His Holiness the Pope during my last visit.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIMONY

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security on the problem of women awarded alimony by court order who do not receive it; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Improvements have been made in the machinery for the enforcement of orders. The Government will consider whether further changes should be made in the light of the report of the Finer Committee and experience of the working of the Attachment of Earnings Act 1971.

Mr. Dalyell: Since the Finer Committee Report is not yet even approaching draft form, does the Prime Minister really dispute the fact that we shall not have legislation on the basis of Finer for a least three or four years? On the Attachment of Earnings Act, is it not a fact that many employers do not want to have anyhing to do with it because they do not want to bitch their relations with their own employees—quite understandably? In those circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman ask his Whips to withdraw their objection to the Ten-Minute Rule Bill and let these matters be discussed in Committee?

The Prime Minister: I would not accept the hon. Gentleman's sentiment about the time taken for legislation. It obviously depends on what the Finer Committee reports. He need not be as pessimistic as he has been about the time taken for any Government legislation which is proposed. As for the hon.

Gentleman's own Bill, he had better wait and see what happens.

Mr. Edward Short: The Prime Minister ought to recognise that there is a considerable human problem here. Will he not look at my hon. Friend's Bill? If he cannot give Government time to get the Bill through, will he ensure that it gets a fair deal and that the Government Whips do not block it?

The Prime Minister: We recognise the problem. That is why we attach importance to the Report of the Finer Committee. As to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), I read his speech when he asked for the right to introduce the Bill to the House—which he obtained. Now it will follow the normal course.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Is the Prime Minister aware that a great deal of public money is unnecessarily expended as a result of the Department of Health and Social Security's compelling wives who are on legal aid to institute proceedings, most of which appear to be totally abortive, against their husbands in pursuance of alimony orders? Would not it be much better if the Department simply paid the wives and let the proceedings drift?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is asking for the introduction of a major principle—that the State take responsibility for all maintenance awards. I do not believe that a Government can possibly accept that principle without waiting for the Finer Committee Report. In any case, I think that most hon. Members will want to give a great deal of consideration to whether such a principle should be accepted at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — DIVORCE LAWS

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Scottish Office, Home Office, and the Department of Health and Social Security on the working of the divorce laws; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Hamilton: The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that there is widespread dissatisfaction resulting from the


lack of harmony between the English divorce law and the Scottish, and that the Scottish Law Commission, the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Office itself, in addition to a large volume of public opinion, want this reform and harmonisation of the law. Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Leader of the House to see whether the facilities and time might be given to allow a Private Member's Bill on the subject to get on the Statute Book?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman asked me about the co-ordination between Departments, not about the state of the law as between two different parts of the United Kingdom. I am not responsible for that. There have been attempts by Scottish Members to change the law of divorce in Scotland, and they have failed. The hon. Gentleman is now to make a further attempt himself. If his proposals are acceptable in principle, drafting assistance will be given to him, but the Government already have a heavy legislative Session ahead, and I give no undertaking about providing time for a Private Member's Bill.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Scottish Ministers themselves want the Bill, that the Scottish Law Commission and virtually all enlightened opinion in Scotland want it? Does not he agree that those are compelling reasons why the Leader of the House should regard it as a special case? If the Government do not have the courage to introduce their own Bill, surely they should give facilities for the House freely to express its opinion, and at least give the time for it to do so?

The Prime Minister: I do not accept that. These are matters normally dealt with through Private Members' Bills. If the hon. Gentleman has the support that he has enunciated, his only task now is to get the support of the House for his Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions — SMALL BUSINESSES

Mr. Redmond: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the coordination between the Departments of Employment and Trade and Industry in respect of services and advice available

to people who wish to start their own businesses; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The two Departments keep in touch on all matters affecting small firms. A special liaison officer was designated in 1971 in the Department of Employment as recommended in the Report of the Bolton Committee. Employment exchanges and offices will have details of services of the 10 small firm centres which the Department of Trade and Industry will open in the spring.

Mr. Redmond: In the light of what the Government have done to help existing small businesses by adopting and implementing the recommendations of the Bolton Report, is my right hon. Friend satisfied that there is adequate liaison between the new job centres of the Department of Employment and the new small firms centres of the Department of Trade and Industry to bring people interested in working for themselves to the places where they will receive the best advice and guidance in the early months of starting the new business?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I think that will be the case when the centres are open in the spring. The Bolton Committee made 56 recommendations, nearly all of which have now been dealt with.

Mr. Skinner: On the question of small businesses as distinct from those that want to get into operation, can the Prime Minister tell us how many have gone bankrupt since the present Government were elected?

The Prime Minister: Not without notice, but if the hon. Gentleman puts down a Question to my right hon. Friend the Secertary of State for Trade and Industry, he will receive an answer.

Mr. Adley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the small businesses are largely responsible for the remarkable fall in the unemployment figures announced today?

The Prime Minister: I have not seen the breakdown of the take-up of employment as between large, medium and small businesses. What I should have thought would be welcomed is the further big drop in unemployment.

Mr. Speaker: Question No. 25. Mr. Dormand.

Mr. Ashley: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: If it is a point of order about Questions, I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would raise it at the end of Question Time.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Schoolchildren (Assault and Robbery)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases of assault on, and robbing of, schoolchildren between home and school have occurred in the last 12 months in the Metropolitan Police area.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): I am arranging for the available information to be collated and shall write to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: If I send my hon. and learned Friend particulars of children from my constituency who have been violently assaulted and terrorised on their way home from school, will he consider those particulars and also consider consultations between the Metropolitan Police and the school authorities?

Mr. Carlisle: I shall certainly call for a report from the Commissioner of Police on any case my hon Friend wishes to put to me.

Mr. John Fraser: As it is important that the children should be able to turn to the police as friends, will the Minister reconsider the decision of the Metropolitan Police to discontinue police visits to schools, which were in connection with accident prevention but which brought about an accord between children and the police force and led to the children's approaching the police about their problems? There is now an estrangement, because the police do not go to the schools quite so often.

Mr. Carlisle: That is an entirely different question, but I shall consider what the hon. Gentleman says.

Mr. Winterton: How seriously would my hon. and learned Friend consider the fact that a patient who has served a term

in Rampton special hospital is living near a school and has already threatened a child on the way to that school?

Mr. Carlisle: No one is released from a special hospital if he is there by court order with a restriction order, unless the Home Secretary is satisfied that it is safe to do so. If my hon. Friend has any particular case of concern to draw to my attention, I shall look at it.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Nursery Education

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with local authorities and the teaching profession concerning the White Paper and nursery education.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Watt): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given earlier today by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher).

Mr. Jones: Does the lion. Gentleman believe that he can find sufficient trained teachers for nursery schools?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Fell: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Biggs-Davison.

Mr. Fell: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I apologise. It is usually either one or the other.

Mr. Fell: May I, without being out of order, thank you very much for your compliment to me, Mr. Speaker?
May I now ask whether, in connection with the nursery schools—

Mr. William Hamilton: Get on with it.

Mr. Fell: I am sorry. I am looking for the Minister. What qualifications are needed by teachers in the nursery schools, in terms of Christian teaching?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: If my hon. Friend will get in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, she will be able to speak to him about it.

Oral Answers to Questions — QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Speaker: With regard to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand), I will reply to the hon. Member privately. There is an explanation.

Mr. Ashley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for not giving you notice of this point of order but in the nature of events I could not do so.
Earlier this week I sought to table a Question to the Prime Minister asking him for a definitive reply on the thalidomide issue. It was ruled out of order. Earlier still the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) sought to put a Question to the Prime Minister on this point. It was transferred. Yesterday I sought to table a Question for the Prime Minister to answer today and that, too, was ruled out of order. I do not complain about that, but since the Prime Minister had been made redundant by 25 minutes past Three today I feel that he should have taken that opportunity of making a statement on this important question.

Mr. Speaker: So far as that point of order involves the Chair I will certainly consider it carefully.

NORTHERN IRELAND (INCIDENTS)

Mr. McMaster: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the violence and murders in the last 24 hours in Northern Ireland.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. William Whitelaw): Since 7 a.m. yesterday, there have been 27 shooting incidents, 15 of which involved the security forces, and five explosions. The House will be aware that tragically seven civilians and a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment were killed. Thirteen civilians were wounded.
As the House will know, there was an appalling episode in Londonderry. Two masked men entered a public house and cold-bloodedly sprayed the bar with automatic fire. Five people in the bar were kill and four were wounded. Earlier, a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment was killed while working on a building site north of the City.
In East Belfast and in Clonmore, there were shootings which resulted in the deaths of two civilians and the wounding of three others.
I know that the whole House would wish to join, particularly at this time, in expressing its deepest sympathy to the relatives of these innocent vicitims of bestial, ruthless and indiscriminate murders.
I have received reports from the security forces this morning that a major cordon and search operation is being conducted in Londonderry. I have given instructions that every possible effort must be made to bring to justice those responsible.
The House will wish to know that I have agreed with the Chief Constable greatly to extend the task force operation which is having some success. This operation will be under the direction of a senior police officer and operate throughout Belfast, where, until yesterday's tragic developments in Londonderry, the vast majority of these murders have been taking place.
In the last 24 hours, the security forces have arrested nine men, including five believed to be members of the IRA and a man in East Belfast in possession of arms and ammunition. In addition they have seized five weapons, a quantity of ammunition and bomb-making material. Four men are being questioned by the police in connection with the main Londonderry incident.

Mr. McMaster: May I thank my right hon. Friend for that statement and join him in his expressions of sympathy to the relatives of those who have been injured and killed? In view of the terrible death toll in this campaign of violence, despite the efforts of the security forces—which are welcomed and appreciated by the general public in Northern Ireland—will my right hon. Friend consider steps in addition to those announced yesterday, including such things as the carrying of identification documents by everyone in Northern Ireland and perhaps some restriction on the movement of people and vehicles after midnight or even after 7 p.m.? Will he also consider whether some involvement of the general public in Northern Ireland might not be obtained by the early restoration of a democratically elected assembly in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Whitelaw: The possibility of carrying identification cards and of curfews on vehicles is carefully considered both generally and in particular areas. The danger of going on this road very often is that we divert large quantities of security forces from tasks which are more important in the security operation. Such matters can certainly be considered.
As for the involvement of the general public, my hon. Friend knows of the various talks and discussions which are being held. Whatever else is decided, whatever constitutional plans are made, those responsible in Northern Ireland have to deal with the security situation and there are no short cuts. I do not believe that there is any way other than the way we are seeking to operate, with a very large deployment of British forces responsible to this House.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Is not one of the basic reasons for the common approach to Northern Ireland in this House—not to the detail of policy—the common understanding that this ancient problem seems to be almost insoluble? These horrible sectarian murders of recent months, those of recent days, the shooting of the UDR man, the shooting in a Catholic pub last evening reinforce this pessimism. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that from this side of the House we are sure that we must find a way out, that we cannot wash our hands of Northern Ireland? It is in that spirit that I ask him three questions.
Will he call, on behalf of all of us, upon the leaders of Northern Ireland, religious, political and industrial, to state clearly their abhorrence and lack of support for these murders, from whichever part of the community they come? We realise the difficulties involved here. It is easier to say this here than to do so in Northern Ireland. Let them all stand up and be counted. On a practical note, will the Government look again at the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about guns? Will he call in all guns and issue limited licences where they are necessary? Will he search in both communities and have a mandatory sentence operating against those illegally carrying arms?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are glad to hear that arrests have been made but that we believe that it is

important to get to the root of the question and to deal with the large number of guns being carried in Northern Ireland? Because insecurity is at the root of the breakdown in law and order, can we have the political and economic future of Northern Ireland spelled out quickly? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a lack of decision is playing into the hands of sectarian murderers?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said. Leaders of the Churches and the community have already expressed their abhorrence of last night's events and of violence generally in recent times. I am sure that they will note what the hon. Gentleman says and I entirely endorse it. There have been this morning—some hon. Members may have heard—expressions from political leaders in various parts of the community calling upon people to be calm and condemning the disgraceful outrage last night. People have spoken out clearly and I hope that they will be encouraged further to do so.
Turning to the point about the licensing of arms, there is only a limited number of arms licences. Out of a total of roughly 105,000, the vast majority, over 70,000, are for shotguns in country districts. I do not believe that it would be right to call these in and I have repeatedly said this. On the other hand, there are limited licences for people who have been given arms for their protection. These are constantly reviewed and always will be. We have to take the judgment of the police in these cases. The killings that have been taking place with machine guns and the rest are certainly not being done with any licensed arms.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Will my right hon. Friend say whether all these murders are of a sectarian nature or whether there is an element of criminal killing? Has any thought been given to the CID from Scotland Yard going to help the Royal Ulster Constabulary?

Mr. Whitelaw: It would be very dangerous for me to state specifically what may be the reasons, or the motives, behind the various murders or which people are responsible for them. There are many different facets to them. I think there is do doubt that there is a large measure of sheer criminal thuggery attached to many of them, but I think there are


sectarian aspects as well, and we cannot run away from them. As for the resources of the police, I should point out that very large reinforcements both of police and Army have been sent into the area concerned in Londonderry this morning. Although the resources of the Royal Ulster Constabulary CID are strained they are doing everything humanly possible to bring these people to justice. The problem of moving the CID from Scotland Yard to Northern Ireland, as I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate, is that it would bring people into an area of which they know nothing and have no experience. On the spur of the moment, it would not be likely to succeed but it can always be considered.

Mr. Russell Johnston: May I underline the point made by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees)? Although, as the Secretary of State said, religious leaders have condemned this particular incident and violence in general, I think perhaps what the hon. Member was getting at was that an outstanding, united statement from all the leaders across sectarian boundaries condemning violence might have some effect. If they were called upon so to do by the Secretary of State they might well respond.

Mr. Whitelaw: I have already, on previous occasions, asked them to do so and they have made a united call. I certainly note what the hon. Member says, as, I know, will the Church leaders concerned.

Mr. Deedes: Do not these appalling episodes, in particular the one in Londonderry, make it very clear that the Christmas holiday ahead of us, which might otherwise have been regarded as a period of comparative relaxation for the security services, must now be regarded in quite another light?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am afraid that that is inevitably the case.

Mr. Fernyhough: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his decision not to call in all the arms now in private hands? Would he not agree that a careful reading of what he said about those who are entitled to them for personal security is really a recipe for everybody in Northern Ireland to have guns? Does he believe that it will be a safer place if

everyone has them? On that basis will he not reconsider, and make a determined effort to get them all under security?

Mr. Whitelaw: If the right hon. Gentleman reads that into my remarks then my remarks must have been wrong. I certainly did not intend them to have that meaning, particularly since where licences for arms are given for personal protection they are subject to very careful scrutiny both by the police and also by myself. I look at all the particular cases myself. I believe that, as I am responsible, that is right. As I consistently say, I am not prepared to call in licences for shortguns in country areas because I do not believe that makes any sense. I must point out that the problem of arms in Northern Ireland is that of the unlicensed arms, not the licensed ones.

STEEL INDUSTRY (MODERNISATION)

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Walker): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the modernisation programme of the British Steel Corporation. I have reached agreement with the corporation on a strategy for the major modernisation of British steel production over the next 10 years. It will require a programme of investment of £3,000 million to provide for modernisation and expansion—by far the biggest carried out in the history of the British steel industry.
The object of the strategy is to create an efficient, profitable, modern industry able to compete with the rest of the world and able to assure future employment. It involves a major development of the five main heritage sites and of special steel plants in the Sheffield-Rotherham area and the development of a major new steel complex. The effects on the major steel-producing regions will be as follows:—
In Wales, a major development to 6 million tonnes at Port Talbot in addition to the current expansion at Llanwern. This should assure the future of the Welsh tinplate industry. Steelmaking and hot-rolling at Shotton will continue till towards the end of the 1970s and finishing processes will continue thereafter. Wales will have nearly 30 per cent. of the total


investment under the strategy, an investment approaching £900 million. Steel production in Wales will be increased to about 10 million tonnes. The future of East Moors and Brymbo are the subject of continuing discussion between the BSC and GKN.
In Scotland, the heritage site at Ravenscraig is already being expanded. It will be further expanded during the period to 3·2 million tonnes steelmaking capacity. The corporation will also install new electric are steel making of up to 1 million tonnes. This is likely to be at Hallside, and supported at some stage by a new direct reduced pellet plant, probably at Hunterston. Thus, by the end of the period covered by the strategy total steel production in Scotland will be increased to about 4½ million tonnes. Finishing processes will continue at many of the present Scottish works, including Glengarnock, and will provide the wide range of products which are so important to the Scottish steel using industries.
In the North-East, there will be a substantial increase in output from the heritage site at Lackenby and the development of a major new steel complex on the south bank of the Tees. This complex will be developed in two phases each of about 3½ million tonnes capacity. The new works will be adjacent to the existing Lackenby works and their combined capacity would ultimately exceed 12 million tonnes.
In Yorkshire-Humberside, there will be a substantial increase in output from the Anchor development on the heritage site at Scunthorpe. In the Sheffield-Rotherham area capacity for stainless and alloy steelmaking and rolling will be modernised and expanded.
The five heritage plants and the new Teesside works are expected eventually to provide the whole of the corporation's bulk steelmaking apart from certain electric are furnaces. For some years steelmaking will also continue at other centres. The existing finishing plants at a number of these centres will continue for the foreseeable future.
It is vital that there should be flexibility to adjust plans to changing circumstances and we have agreed with the British Steel Corporation guidelines under which we shall be able to regulate the timing of the major projects. Decisions as to timing will, of course, depend on

the pattern of competition, demand and prices, and on the changing efficiencies of particular plants. This strategy should enable employment in the industry to be maintained at a higher level and with far greater security than would otherwise have been possible.
It will, however, in a number of areas mean a loss of jobs over the decade.
Since the nationalisation of the steel industry the BSC has cut its manpower by 27,000, and future measures resulting in a further reduction of 20,000 have already been announced. Under the proposed strategy of modernisation, manpower would fall by another 30,000 by the end of the decade.
But it is only by modernisation that we can secure the 180,000 jobs thus remaining in the BSC. Moreover, the investment required by the programme will sustain and create a large number of jobs, possibly as many as 75,000. These will principally be in the heavy electrical mechanical and civil engineering industries. It will also give British plant manufacturers a domestic market which will be a good base for export opportunities.
The Government are particularly concerned about the impact on a number of communities where steel has been the dominant industry and intend to work closely together with the corporation and the trades unions concerned so as to minimise the social consequences in these localities. The fullest use will be made of the Industry Act and the advance factory programme, and there will be a concerted inter-departmental effort to assist in providing new job opportunities.
British industry requires steel of high quality at competitive prices to ensure its own contribution to growth at home, to benefit from the Common Market opportunities and to participate in expanding world trade. A modernised British steel industry will make a vital contribution to this. This strategy will give management and men, with their great tradition and skills, the opportunity to win for the industry its share of the expanding steel market and to assure Britain's continuing place among the major steel producers of Europe and the world.
A White Paper will be published as soon as possible setting out these proposals.

Mr. Varley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement has concealed many of the true facts, especially on redundancies? Will he confirm that what he has just announced is 50,000 additional redundancies in the steel industry over the next seven years and that that is the full measure of it? Why cannot he be more precise? Why cannot he tell us which areas will be affected and what will happen in Shotton, Shelton, Consett, East Moors, Corby and the rest? The people in these communities are entitled to know exactly what the future holds for them.
Is the Secretary of State further aware that his statement comes after 21 years of harassment and humiliation of the British Steel Corporation and that valuable time has been lost? The vague assurances the right hon. Gentleman has given on flexibility are not sufficient and we want to know much more about it. Will he tell us, for example, what will be the total tonnage of steel by the end of this decade. It apparently falls far short of the original BSC development plan which his predecessor announced to the House on 18th March 1971, in which the target was 35 million tonnes by 1975 and 43 million tonnes by 1980. The Government have knocked the BSC down from those levels.
What economic growth is envisaged under the plan and what will be the level of exports? Will the right hon. Gentleman say more about the 75,000 jobs to be sustained and created? How many new jobs will there be and what guarantees are there that they will be in traditional steel-making areas? It is no good the Prime Minister shaking his head. The people in the steel communities want to know this. For them to have to rely upon vague assurances about the use of the Industry Act over this period is insufficient. We want to know about the specific projects for specific areas. Surely, after 2½ years, the Government are not totally unprepared?
As the plan announced by the Secretary of State falls far short of the original development plan announced by the BSC, we hope that the White Paper will be published as quickly as possible, and we shall want to debate it as soon as the House re-assembles after Christmas.

Mr. Walker: We must get the question of redundancies into the right perspective. My statement contains the facts as they are known to the Government. Since nationalisation, manpower has dropped by 27,000, and prior to this strategy being approved the British Steel Corporation had given notice of a further reduction of 22,000 jobs. In addition, there will be a further 30,000 to go. Nothing has been concealed about this. It will help the Opposition to get this into perspective if they realise that in the six years of Labour Government it was a case not of 30,000 being affected but of a reduction of 404,000 jobs.
It is quite impossible in a statement to give details of individual plants and that is why the Government have decided to publish a White Paper which will set out in full the arguments for the reductions.
The hon. Gentleman failed to mention the massive advantages which will accrue to a whole range of areas from the substantial expansion and modernisation programme I have announced today which, in total, dwarfs anything conceived by the previous Government. On the question of delay, the BSC submitted its proposals to us in October. Those proposals were carefully considered and the announcement accepting the strategy has been made today.
As to tonnage, if one decides that it is sensible, as I believe it is, to have a degree of flexibility to take account of world conditions, it would be wrong to set a tonnage deadline for a specific date. Under this strategy it is likely that by 1980 production will be of the order of 33 million tonnes in the nationalised sector. Already, the private sector is producing 3 million tonnes. The strategy will enable us through the 1980s to go quickly to a production figure of 38 million tonnes. I suggest that the House should compare this with the six years of the previous Administration when steel production went up from 27 million tonnes to 28 million tonnes in six years. There is quite a difference in performance.
As to the 75,000 jobs created by the expansion programme, they are likely to be in the centres concerned. I agree that they will not necessarily be jobs in the areas primarily connected with steel


manufacturing but jobs will be provided in the heavy electrical industry, and many development areas are concerned with the heavy electrical industry.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask for the help of the House. Any time spent on the statement takes time out of the debate on coal in which many hon. Members wish to speak. I can see that about 30 right hon. and hon. Members want to ask supplementary questions. So I appeal for brevity.

Sir R. Cary: Does my right hon. Friend's statement mean that the North-Western area, the home of the Industrial Revolution, with its great industrial strength, will be denied any steel-making capacity of its own? If that is so under rationalisation, it means that a degree of misery and unhappiness will be brought to many steel workers and their families whom I know personally.

Mr. Walker: It does not mean that. In the North-West region the main capacity at present is in Irlam. The closure of that plant was announced in April 1971. But Irlam is a possible candidate for a mini-mill in the future.

Mr. Michael Foot: The vagueness of the right hon. Gentleman's statement is illustrated by the fact that he has not referred to Ebbw Vale. The BSC proposals if carried through would be a catastrophe of the first order for Ebbw Vale, and the whole life of the community would be shattered. Will the right hon. Gentleman give a clear undertaking that he will not sanction or approve the proposals for Ebbw Vale until they have been examined on the spot or, if the worst comes to the worst, until both he and the Government have given an absolute assurance of alternative employment to make up for the jobs lost?
Have the Government now abandoned the 28-million tonne target which was first introduced into these discussions by them? If they are prepared to abandon that target, why should they not now return to the full 42-million or 43-million tonne target accepted by the Labour Government?

Mr. Walker: The one target the Labour Government actually committed themselves to was, in 1965, to increase

steel production by nearly 4 million tonnes. At that time there was a publication called the National Plan which said that steel production would rise by 34 million tonnes. In fact, it rose by 1 million tonnes during that period.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the announcement that steel making would not continue in Ebbw Vale was made three months before the June 1970 General Election, in the time of his Government. The Labour Government said in March 1970 that steelmaking would stop in Ebbw Vale. At present the corporation and the unions are examining the basis upon which the corporation has decided upon the closure. The decision for closure of any specific plant is a matter for the corporation under the Statute that the Labour Government put into operation.
The possibility of attracting other industries to Ebbw Vale is linked with the provision of cheap steel plate from Port Talbot which will be of great consequence and importance to Ebbw Vale.

Dame Irene Ward: Although I am unable at this stage to comment on what is to happen in the North-East, may I express my confidence that my right hon. Friend will do everything he can to make the iron and steel industry a competitive one in Britain?
Will the Government bear in mind the immense anxiety that a statement of this kind must create in the minds of ordinary people connected with the steel industry who do not know what their future will hold? Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that before any time has passed their anxiety will be dealt with? I am sure that my right hon. Friend, with his very sympathetic knowledge of industrial relations, will bear in mind that men and their families cannot be expected to take all the top strategy without knowing how it will affect their jobs.

Mr. Walker: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments. Besides having a massive injection of investment, a very substantial increase in steel production, and the creation of a large number of jobs, the North-East is also involved in the types of industry which are concerned with the investment programme. The representations I have received from both sides about the possible strategy and


its effects on the North-East lead me to believe that there will be considerable pleasure at its announcement.
As for the effect of the strategy on plants which will be replaced by the new, modern plants, the advantage is that the corporation will be able four or five years ahead to discuss with the unions and the Government any future closures that might be involved. This will enable us to set up the appropriate inter-departmental organisation and to secure the full use of the advance factory procedure and the Industry Act in an effort to minimise the human problems involved in such changes.

Mr. Eadie: In what way will the White Paper deal with the effect of our entry into the Common Market on the Government's proposals? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many development areas are job hungry and as a consequence of this statement will be even hungrier for jobs? Some of them will regard the statement not as a statement on steel but as a memorial to the steel industry in areas where they are trying to find employment.

Mr. Walker: I have discussed the potential effect of the strategy on Scotland with many people connected with Scotland, including Scottish Labour Members. I do not believe that the announcement that in future Scotland will increase its production of steel to 4½ million tonnes in modern plant and will benefit from a major injection of capital investment will be greeted by anybody other than those with a political bias except with complete rejoicing.

Mr. Skeet: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the majority of the British people will support his idea of putting new technology into the industry, namely, LD furnaces, electric are furnaces, and direct reduction methods, and that time is against Britain unless it is prepared to bring them in fairly quickly? Will he orient the detail of his proposals on Europe?

Mr. Walker: The tragedy has been over the past decade that when other countries were going ahead with modernisation investment in the British steel industry was virtually static. We had six years of Labour Government. Alas, the

Labour Government were much more interested in nationalisation than in modernisation. It is only now that we can begin to catch up.

Sir G. de Freitas: The Secretary of State has not mentioned the future of Corby. Does he realise that over 80 per cent. of the male manual workers in Corby are employed in steel? Will the Government, whatever happens, encourage diversification of industry by allowing industrial development certificates for new firms which seek to establish themselves?

Mr. Walker: Steelmaking is likely to continue for the rest of the decade in Corby. In the corporation's view, Corby has an assured long-term future as a major tube-making plant. If a locality is likely to be affected by strategies such as this, that will be a matter which will be carefully considered as regards granting industrial development certificates.

Mr. Grimond: So that we may judge the full effect of this strategy upon the Scottish economy, will the Secretary of State say what share Scotland will have in the £3,000 million investment plan, what the effect on employment is likely to be, and when, if ever, the Hunterston pellet-making plant is likely to start?

Mr. Walker: I cannot put a date to the last question. It is a matter for the corporation's judgment. Investment in Scotland is likely to be about £400 million. Obviously there are likely to be increased job opportunities at Ravenscraig and Hallside.

Mr. Crouch: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's obvious enthusiasm for modernisation of this industry, which is Corby. In the Corporation's view, Corby basic to our economy. However, I am concerned lest his enthusiasm for modernisation leads him to put something less than top priority to the absolute essential of good communication and consultation if the contraction element of the industry is to be properly handled.

Mr. Walker: I agree. The advantage of such a strategy is that we have four or five years for each locality affected to make an excellent plan for tackling these problems.

Mr. John Mendelson: May I ask the Secretary of State whether he is prepared to address himself not so much to the


general propaganda that he is enunciating as to the detailed implications of his statement. He will know that those who work in steel have accepted and now accept the aim of a modernised industry and that he has no need to erect any Aunt Sallies about that one. He will also know that that agreement has always been attached to two conditions which the unions have expressed to every Government—that there must be the creation of an equal number of jobs as near as possible in the industry; and that the development must take place pari passu, side by side, and the Government must commit themselves to spending money to keep works open and allow production to continue until new jobs have been created. It is the Secreary of State's task today to give assurance to those who represent steel workers.

Mr. Walker: It is only by agreeing a long-term strategy for modernisation that one can ensure that the human problem—that of the replacement of jobs—is tackled effectively. If we had gone on without a strategy of this nature, one works after another would have been knocked out because of its complete failure to compete with other steel firms throughout the world. I assure the hon. Gentlemen that the Government intend in their long-term plan to replace the jobs concerned.

Sir F. Maclean: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction he will give in Scotland by the announcement of this substantial expansion of the productive capacity in the steel industry and by the numerous new jobs which will be created in associated industries? Will he do something which he is doubtless well qualified to do when arriving at any decision about Hunterston, namely, bear in mind the important environmental considerations involved?

Mr. Walker: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said in his first question. The latter question will be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who I know will bear these matters very much in mind.

Mr. Eddie Griffiths: May I give a broad welcome to the theme of the Secretary of State's statement. By quick arithmetic I calculate that by 1980 we shall have capacity of 35 million ingot tonnes modern capacity, plus a further

12 million tonnes of obsolete and openhearth steelmaking capacity. If 4 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes of this were kept open it would give us the 40 million tonnes total that the Opposition have been seeking. I criticise the Government for not going a little further and authorising a further 5 million ingot tonnes of modern capacity which would have put us on a par with Western Germany.
In view of the statement, and as the British Steel Corporation planning, both in broad terms and in detail, has been vindicated, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that scrutinising bodies under the chairmanship of civil servants will never again look at the steel industry? Will he agree that the corporation has been completely vindicated?
On the serious question of those areas such as Irlam where steelmaking is to stop, will he explain what firm ideas he has for attracting suitable alternative industries to employ the redundant steel workers? Among these proposals will he include something to allow the BSC to diversify its activity both on its own and in joint ventures with private concerns to take industry to the traditional steel areas?

Mr. Walker: On the point about the general relationship between the Government and the BSC over this strategy, we have agreed a guideline procedure with the chairman of the BSC which will result in the Government being able quickly to know the facts upon which important decisions of strategy are to be taken but without the detailed interference in management which has been so time consuming in the past.
As for providing other jobs, the task involved here must vary from locality to locality and upon this will depend the nature of the diversity which can be provided. Any community which is substantially affected will have at its behest a cross section of all Government Departments which will, years before the closure, find the best way of diversifying industry in that area.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: The pattern of technical development and the pattern of its location are obviously crucial to the capacity of the British steel industry to meet the growing costs and its competitors and therefore to guarantee employment. Will my right hon. Friend say a little


more about the £3,000 million? Is it £3,000 million at today's prices or will it be £300 million a year over the next decade?

Mr. Walker: It will be £3,000 million at 1972 prices.

Mr. Barry Jones: The Secretary of State has passed a death sentence on 7,200 jobs at the Shotton Works. Has he any idea of the calamitous consequences of such an appalling scale of redundancy for the steel town of Shotton, for the whole economy of North Wales and for the economy of North-West England as well? What hope can he give me for my constituents and for the whole area that they will not be murdered on the altar of accountancy?

Mr. Walker: I am very well aware of the potential social problems for a community such as Shotton, which is so dependent upon steel. I know the way in which the hon. Member has actively put the case for his constituency and has put forward the problems of Shotton both to myself and to the Government as a whole. At Shotton it is not expected that steelmaking will stop before the latter part of the decade and it will involve 6,000 jobs. The rest of the processing will continue there. I realise that this is a substantial proportion of the labour force, but I can assure him that if we had decided, as I know he was advocating, to modernise Shotton it would have cost a substantial figure—3,000 jobs would have been lost in any case—and it would not have been anywhere near as competitive as, for example, the major development at Port Talbot. It was because there was no long-term future for steelmaking at the inland site at Shotton that the decision was taken.
I can assure the hon. Member that it is the intention of my Department and of other Government Departments quickly to recognise the serious problem which will arise in five or six years time for Shotton and to use every method available to the Government—the Industry Act, advance factories, and so on—to see that the problem is tackled.

Sir A. Meyer: Many people in North Wales consider that had Summers remained in private ownership it would have modernised its steelmaking capacity.

Will my right hon. Friend give urgent consideration to asking the Secretary of State for the Environment to grant special development area status to Flintshire?

Mr. Walker: I can assure my hon. Friend that we shall be discussing the problems of areas such as Shotton and that we shall be considering every way in which we can help.

Mr. Bottomley: Several times the Secretary of State referred to the six years of Labour Government. But does he not realise that major responsibility for the weakness of the steel industry rests with his Conservative predecessors, first because of denationalisation and, secondly, because of the division of the strip mill capacity between Wales and Scotland which contributed to the inefficiency of the industry. The Secretary of State said that the statement made today had been agreed with the BSC. Was the agreement as a result of compromise or is the strategy based upon the original proposition of the BSC?

Mr. Walker: It is certainly not the case that the BSC compromised. Obviously, during the period of consideration there has been a dialogue between the Government and the corporation. I am certain that the BSC will agree that this is the strategy that it wished to pursue.

Mr. MacArthur: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this will be the largest-ever investment in the Scottish steel industry and that it will provide it with a firm, secure and modern base for the future? Will he confirm that his statement today means that Scotland's steel-producing capacity will increase by 28 per cent. and that at Ravenscraig the increase will be by one-third? Can he give us an estimate today of the number of new jobs that are likely to be created in ancillary industries as a result of the statement?

Mr. Walker: I can confirm the various propositions put to me by my hon. Friend. The BSC and the Government were well aware of the importance of increasing steel capacity in Scotland, not just because of the direct effect on the industry itself but because of the opportunity of attracting a wide diversity of industries to take advantage of it. It was on that basis that we agreed the strategy.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Thousands of jobs are involved in this matter. I am concerned with the special steels division of the industry. What is to be the future of special steels production in Scotland? What will be the level of production there and how many jobs will be lost?

Mr. Walker: I am unable to give specific answers to the hon. Member's points but I shall let him know.

Mr. Rost: The statement will bring fresh encouragement to the steel industry and to the nation's economy generally. In view of that, will my right hon. Friend explain why the Labour Party, which nationalised the industry and then watched it become obsolete and unprofitable, is now opposed to a realistic modernisation programme which will bring security and prosperity?

Mr. Walker: Alas, it is certainly true that in recent years the steel industry has lagged far behind its competitors abroad. It has, however, started to pick up over the last two years and as a result of the programme I have announced we shall be able to produce one of the finest steel industries in the world.

Mr. David Watkins: The Secretary of State has said nothing about the future of steel making at Consett where a large community is almost wholly dependent upon steel making and where any reduction in employment opportunities would be a demoralising and shattering blow. What proposals does the right hon. Gentleman have for Consett and what are the so-called massive advantages for that area?

Mr. Walker: Consett will operate as a steelmaking concern certainly until late in this decade. It is impossible to make a decision beyond that. I am advised by the BSC that it is considering Consett as a possible supplementary source of billets together with a number of other candidates.

Mr. Tinn: The decision about South Teesside, which has been long awaited and long delayed, will be warmly welcomed in the area which in recent years has lost 9,000 jobs and has been hit harder than any other. The steel workers there have a right to expect that much more will be done to provide alter-

native work in the future than has been done in the past.

Mr. Walker: I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said. One of the difficulties in a strategy of this sort is that virtually the whole of the steel industry is situated in the development and intermediate areas. Wherever one decides that major investments are to take place, other areas are somewhat disappointed. I am pleased that Teesside will benefit considerably by this massive injection of capital and I hope that hon. Members from Teesside who have been to see me on this topic will join in that pleasure.

Mr. Cant: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have just been speaking to the Chairman of the Shelton Works Action Committee and that 2,750 men at that works are bitterly disappointed that no decision has been reached about their future? In view of the fact that this is a highly profitable works, will he give £4½ million in capital investment to ensure that this total of almost 3,000 men will retain their jobs?

Mr. Ashley: It is a simple equation.

Mr. Walker: It is not a simple equation. Any decision on Shelton is a matter which must be fitted into future trends and not into the existing position. The steelmaking and continuous casting plant, because of its nature and the total strategy that is being pursued, will be closed in the course of this decade. I am advised by the corporation that Shelton is a possible site for a mini-mill.

Mr. Lawson: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the disappointment in Scotland over the Hunterston steel complex, but for my part I have to say that lie appears to be about to do a great deal for Lanarkshire. Will he confirm that what he said about the 1 million-tonne series of electric are furnaces in Hallside, with pelletisation at Hunterston, represents firm plans and not things which might come up in the future?

Mr. Walker: The announcements I have made today are part of the strategy for the next decade. The exact timing will depend on the conditions of demand, otherwise at certain times there would be over-capacity. This is the capacity and I can confirm the development, probably


at Hallside, of a mill of 1 million tonnes capacity.

Mr. Leadbitter: The Secretary of State is right to expect a favourable response from certain areas to his announcement about the investment programme, but this does not alter the fact that we are dealing with the national interest and with the industry as a whole. I remind him that, whether he likes is or not, 50,000 people will be made redundant in the next seven years. Therefore, I am justified in pressing him on my own problem in the Hartlepools where we have the highest unemployment figure in the whole Northern region. We have 72 men and boys now out of work, wholly unemployed, for every one vacancy registered. Will it be possible for me to press the right hon. Gentleman to discuss the future of the Hartlepools works since this involves the livelihood of 5,000 men? The picture for those men, even though there is to be investment on Teesside, will be blacker than black, if the Hartlepool works is closed or if the take-up of labour from Hartlepool is not possible in the new Teesside development.

Mr. Walker: On the question of 50,000 jobs lost which was put to me by the hon. Gentleman, I would point out that that is not in any way a redundancy figure. It relates to the number of men employed in the industry. Many of those will be lost by retirement and in other ways. The figure of 50,000 for the ten-year period compares with 40,000 over the six-year period of the Labour Government. As for Teesside, the major development there has been announced and it will, both directly and indirectly, bring essential help to Hartlepools.

Mr. John Morris: I welcome the part of the statement dealing with Port Talbot. Will the Secretary of State now agree that the Government's decision earlier this year for production by 1980 within the wide bracket of 28 million tonnes and 35 million tonnes totally lacked credibility and that the Government's policy decision has now been condemned out of the right hon. Gentleman's own mouth? What evidence is there that the Government's pious hopes for bringing new industry to areas which have great need of it will prove to be any better than their futile efforts have been so far?

Mr. Walker: The "futile efforts" so far have resulted this month in the biggest fall in unemployment for 30 years. That is an encouraging start. As for South Wales, I believe that the developments at Port Talbot will not just result in important work connected with the investment programme at Port Talbot itself but will enable South Wales to attract a number of industries.

Mr. John Robertson: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on making a tragedy appear to be a triumph. Will he give more details about the situation in Scotland? How many steelworks will close? What will be the total number of steelworkers made redundant? What multiplier will he use to cope with the total number of unemployed as a result of closures and redundancies? Lastly, how much of the total tonnage of raw steel made will be finished in Scotland?

Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman asked me about the effect in Scotland of the closure of works. He will be delighted to know that as a result of today's statement there will be no further closure of any works in Scotland other than those which have already been announced in the past. I am sure that will give the hon. Gentleman great pleasure. Furthermore, developments at Hallside and Ravenscraig will result in a substantial amount of new jobs in the steel industry in those places. Therefore, in terms of steelmaking and investment this will bring new opportunities for Scottish industry.

Mr. English: Has the right hon. Gentleman's scheme been approved by the European Community? Could it be altered by that Community? I presume that he has given the House his figure of gross investment, and therefore could he tell the House what is the net investment figure in the light of his asset-stripping? Finally, when will Stanton works close, how many men will be affected, and what jobs will they be offered?

Mr. Walker: There is no necessity to obtain approval from the Community on this matter, and there will be no interference with this strategy by the Community. As for specific plans, I must inform the hon. Gentleman that he must


wait for the White Paper in which we shall be outlining the overall effects for the country at large. The investment is £3,000 million, half of which comes from cash resources which will be obtained from the corporation and as to half from public funds.

Mr. Lambie: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how the United Kingdom will remain a major world steel producer when he is giving it a target of 33 million tonnes and when for some time our main competitor, Japan, has been aiming at an annual production target of 120 million tonnes? The Secretary of State must recognise that there will be great disappointment in Scotland not to site a greenfield integrated steel unit at Hunterston. Contrary to the opinions of some of my colleagues on this side of the House, does he not appreciate that his decision today not to announce this development at Hunterston will mean, in the early 1980s, the closure of every steel-producing area in Scotland with the loss of 26,000 jobs? [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] It is not rubbish. Did the Secretary of State for Scotland offer his resignation at the Government's decision not to take the complex to Hunterston?

Mr. Walker: The House will judge for itself whether the hon. Gentleman's colleagues, who spoke a little earlier from the Scottish benches, and indeed those Scottish Members from both sides of the House who have discussed these matters with me, were right or wrong. Certainly none of those hon. Members, bearing in mind the figures which they suggested to me, will be disappointed by the statement. It is a statement which does far better for the steel industry in Scotland than anything either achieved or envisaged by the Labour Government.

Mr. Ashley: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for being so forbearing. What kind of simple conjuring trick is the Secretary of State trying to play when making a major statement on the steel industry without mentioning Shelton, which is one of the very few firms in Britain which have uneconomic equipment and yet make a profit? Does the Minister realise that with the investment of £4½ million on electrical are furnaces this one works could become a gold mine? Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us not only that he will keep this works open but that

he will expand it? If he does not, North Staffordshire will be devastated.

Mr. Walker: I have said already that iron and steelmaking and the continuous casting plant will close during this decade as part of the strategy. What is involved here is the need to take into consideration the total strategy of modernising the British steel industry and the fact that inland sites cannot compete with the major developments taking place throughout the world on coastal waters. As I have said, Shelton is one of the sites being considered as possible sites for mini-mills in the future.

Mr. Ross: I hope that the Secretary of State will not underestimate the disappointment that there is in Scotland about Hunterston. Does the Secretary of State recall that a week or so ago the CBI and the STUC urged upon his Department the very much higher United Kingdom figure of 40 million tonnes and said that that was desirable on the basis of the Government's own growth rate figures, and that just this week the Scottish Council (Development Industry) produced a document urging a new development at Hunterston with an initial capacity of 3 million tonnes? The Secretary of State must not fob us off about this. Is he aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland said that it would be essential to use to the full the unique potentialities of Hunterston and that one of the Under-Secretaries of Scotland said that it would be criminal lunacy not to develop a steel industry at Hunterston? This Government stand condemned out of their own mouths by failing to reach a decision which would be to the advantage of the whole of Scotland.
Will the Secretary of State say whether the figure of 7,000 announced by the British Steel Corporation as being the number of redundancies in Scotland is the limit? Is there nothing to be added in relation to the finishing processes? In his statement, the right hon. Gentleman does not say that all the finishing processes will continue. He says that many will, but he does not say where. Hallside is already producing special steels, and Craigneuk, Hallside and Tollcross account for 5,000 jobs. How many jobs will be lost in the finishing processes? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that


since his Government took office Scotland has lost 100,000 jobs by redundancy? Any further loss and failure to repair the damage already done will be very serious.

Mr. Walker: It is tragic how the Labour Party hates receiving good news. For that sort of statement to come from the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), who was a member of a Cabinet which allowed the British steel industry to fail to obtain the investment that it needed, it is even harder to understand, since it meant losing considerable opportunities.
As for the national objective of 42 million tonnes, the figures that I have given today show that we can be producing 38 million tonnes in the 1980s in the public sector. With the private sector at the moment already producing 3 million tonnes, a 42 million tonne figure as the national production ought to be reached as a result of this strategy.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about Hunterston. Hunterston has unique facilities and opportunities, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is at the moment considering a whole range of planning applications for developments there. As for Hallside, I leave it to the people surrounding the locality to decide whether they are pleased with today's announcement.

Mr. Speaker: The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day—

Mr. English: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of State referred to a gross investment of £3,000 million. Obviously he wants to catch the headlines. However, he did not answer my question asking what was the net investment—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a matter of order for me. It concerns the content of a ministerial answer.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.35 p.m.

The Minister for Industry (Mr. Tom Boardman): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Government's proposals for assisting the coal industry were outlined by my right hon. Friend in his statement to the House on 11th December. The purpose of the present Bill is to translate those proposals into reality.
The aim is to give the coal industry the opportunity to re-establish its financial viability in order that it can provide a secure and competitively priced primary fuel, making its full contribution towards meeting the growing energy demands both within the United Kingdom and overseas.
Obviously, as similar debates here have amply shown, one cannot consider the position of the coal industry in isolation from energy trends and prospects generally. I believe it would therefore help the House if I were to begin by setting the scene in which coal problems have to be considered and indicating the Government's approach to energy policy formulation.
One thing that has been shown clearly in recent years is the way in which the energy scene and prospects can change dramatically—in the world at large as well as in this country—in a relatively short time. For example, in this period, the OPEC Governments have united to increase the revenues which they derive from oil lying within their territories, and have also pressed for participation in its production—a development which is eventually likely to have far-reaching implications for the whole process of oil production and distribution. At the same time, concern has been growing about the adequacy of oil reserves to meet rapidly-growing world demand, and the likely transformation of the USA into a major oil importer over the next few years has given added emphasis to this. I am not one who takes an alarmist view, but the longer-term prospects call for very careful assessment, on a global basis.
Other major changes over recent years have already been well ventilated in the House. North Sea oil, with the promise of some 75 million tons a year by 1980 from the United Kingdom sector, is obviously a tremendously valuable development for this country. It will by no means fulfil all our energy demands but clearly has profound implications for the whole alignment of our energy policy thinking. Nuclear power now provides some 3 per cent. of the energy demand in this country and in the longer term will make an increasingly important contribution to our energy demand. The statement made by my right hon. Friend on 8th August pointed the way that we intend to follow on this. But until we are well into the 1980's it will not have any major impact on our need for fossil fuels.
North Sea gas will provide us for many years ahead with a fuel that has special advantages, particularly on environmental grounds. The work of getting the gas rapidly introduced into this country has made great progress. But there is inevitably some doubt about the ultimate level of reserves and the price to be paid for any future discoveries.
There has also been the drama and change caused by last winter's coal strike with the long-term effect it has had on costs and demand.
In considering the problems of individual fuels in this country for up to 15 years ahead, it becomes essential to set the national picture in the context of broader international prospects. This is one of the reasons why this country instigated the idea of a European initiative on energy at the EEC Summit in October, detailed work on which is now developing in Brussels.
We can be certain that our energy demands will increase. They rose from under 300 million tons coal equivalent in 1966 to 323 million tons coal equivalent in 1971 and could be well over 400 million tons by 1980. But the heart of energy policy problems is the role that the individual fuels from different sources will each play in helping to meet the total demand. It is the balance between competing fuels that determines how well the national objectives—in terms of energy costs, security of supply, balance of payments, efficiency and environmental considerations—are served.
But precisely because the key elements in the energy picture fluctuate as I have described, it is notoriously difficult to forecast with any precision the prospect for each individual fuel. That is not surprising. The consumer exercises his choice by reference to price, quality, availability and so on. The Government have nevertheless been intensely involved, over the past two and a half years, in improving the methodology and content of the assessments which my Department makes of future energy prospects. We have also given much thought to the best means of informing the House about these.
I know some hon. Members would wish to have the Government's views set out in a White Paper. But against the background I have described, I am sure that the House recognises the dangers of rushing in with such a document. Over the last two years, a White Paper would have run the risk of becoming quite substantially out-of-date soon after publication; and it could not have given adequate consideration to the movements in the world scene which other Governments, like ourselves, are only now becoming able to analyse and evaluate.
Moreover, this Government very firmly believe that energy policies are not something to which one should momentously give birth at intervals of some years, like a baby elephant, which I understand is nine years in gestation. The pace of change, in this country and abroad, is such that very regular review is needed. It is foolish, and could be extremely costly, to adopt fixed positions prematurely or foreclose options unnecessarily.
This debate gives me an opportunity to tell the House of the key developments that we have under review, and also to hear the views of hon. Members on this important subject; and I have no doubt further occasions will arise in the months ahead. I can also assure hon. Members that we will continue to bear in mind the desirability of keeping the House fully informed about this complex and important sector of economic activity. I can give no guarantee today about how and when this might be done; but I have tried to expose the problem as fairly as I can, and I can promise to keep the point very much in mind.

Mr. Eric Ogden: If the Government are not prepared to consider a White Paper, is it in the hon. Gentleman's mind or in the Government's mind to give any information about the so-called Rothschild Report, on which a great deal of what he is saying this afternoon was based?

Mr. Boardman: As I have said, I will keep all these matters in mind so that I can keep the House informed of what is an important subject. I want to explain why it is now premature to introduce what many hon. Members like to see, for many reasons—namely, a White Paper. It is with that matter that I have been endeavouring to deal.
So much for the background against which we have reviewed the future of the coal industry. On the one hand it is faced with severe competition from other fuels. On the other hand it has the opportunity to match that competition in an expanding market and to obtain for itself a future which will bring security and fair rewards to those who are engaged in it.
I now turn to the immediate problems of the National Coal Board. The NCB lost £157 million last year and is expected to lose about £100 million this year. An important cause of the losses this year and last is attributable to the miners' strike in January and February, the overtime ban which preceded it and the wage settlement which followed it. Certainly no industry in which labour costs account for almost half its total costs could expect to come through such an experience unharmed unless the demand for its produce was very strong indeed. That has not been the case with coal.
For some years there has been a decline in the market for coal. In 1950 coal accounted for about 90 per cent. of total energy demand. By 1971 its share of a bigger market had shrunk to 43 per cent. The gas and transport markets which bought 40 million tons in 1955 have virtually disappeared. Domestic consumption has roughly halved and industrial use decreased by some 60 per cent. In all, demand fell from about 230 million tons in the mid-1950s to 156 million tons in 1970 and 141 million tons in 1971.
I shall return to coal's long-term future in a moment, but the immediate question we had to consider was whether it was right to allow that decline to go on unchecked or, indeed, whether the country could have afforded the flight away from coal which would have been the probable result of letting events take their course.
Before deciding to put the present proposals before Parliament, the Government naturally considered the alternative of letting the industry find its own level without any more aid than is provided for in existing legislation. But we rejected that course as one which would have led to intolerable consequences both on social grounds and because it would have imposed an unacceptable danger to the security of the country's supplies of energy. It would have been out of the question to have allowed the large-scale unemployment which would have resulted, especially before our policy for helping the regions which now face difficulties has had enough time to show its full effects.
What might be called the strategic implications were no less in our minds. Here we must look beyond the coal industry to the prospects to which I have referred for energy as a whole.
In his statement on 11th December my right hon. Friend referred to the uncertainty about the future availability and the price of energy throughout the world. The Government must make a judgment about the balance of risks and costs of alternative courses. In making that judgment, the Government must have in mind the virtually irreversible nature of pit closures, and the cost of sinking new pits. It must also weigh the effect on our balance of payments of the use of different fuels. At present we believe that it would be foolish to allow an over-rapid contraction of the coal industry.
The immediate achievement of financial viability would require a massive and sudden contraction. However well that contraction were managed—and it would he a massive task—it would leave the country both with an energy gap in Me very short term and unacceptably vulnerable to energy shortages in the longer term.
These are the main reasons why we have ruled out the possibility—

Mr. Alex Eadie: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm—we have heard rumours about this—that the Government were concerned about the vulnerability of oil and gas rigs in the North Sea should this country be involved in a conflict? Was that an additional argument or reason when the Government were considering the coal industry?

Mr. Boardman: We must take into account all the factors regarding the security and price of alternative fuels. That is being taken into account. Such factors give rise, as the hon. Gentleman knows, to many uncertainties. These are the main reasons why we have ruled out the possibility of letting the market for coal find its own commercial level in the short term—the social consequences and the need to provide a measure of insurance for our future supplies of energy. At this point of time, therefore, the choice we face is not whether it should be made available but on what scale.

Dame Irene Ward: In all this interesting submission which my hon. Friend is making, can he tell us whether the Conservative Government started examining all this when they took office, because it must have taken a lot of examination for them to have reversed their whole policy?

Mr. Boardman: My hon. Friend is right. We started examining it as soon as we took office, but a great number of uncertainties are still not resolved. For example, no one can say with assurance what oil there will be in the North Sea, or what will be the security of supply from the Middle East. I can confirm that a full examination has been going on, is going on and will continue, but it does not enable us at this point to pitch with any assurance the figures we can expect and put to the House as to the balance in which our energy demands are likely to be met as between alternative fuels.
I shall be dealing later with the limits of aid proposed in the Bill. They are, of course, maxima, but even if the total sum were to be made available there is going to be some contraction of the industry. Some pits will close because their reserves are exhausted. For the other collieries. I welcome the initiative of the National Coal Board and the unions in setting up


the joint review of pit performance, and I have no intention of pre-judging its outcome. But I should be misleading the House if I did not make it clear that, with losses of well over £100 million a year, a number of pits must be so grossly uneconomic that closure must be inevitable, and there are other pits which which will have to improve their performance enormously if they are to remain open.
There will undoubtedly be some contraction and there will be redundancies. In short, our proposals will avoid contraction on a scale which would have been unacceptable on social grounds and would have left us dangerously underinsured against a world shortage of energy. They give the industry the opportunity to put itself in order and its size in the future will depend on the effectiveness with which it tackles this task. The range of output in three years' time is substantial. I would project that it would be upwards of 120 million tons, but how much upwards will be determined by the response of the industry.

Mr. Roy Mason: From the hon. Gentleman's investigations, can he give any indication of what he expects the manpower to be in the industry by the end of the decade?

Mr. Boardman: That is up to the industry. The whole philosophy of the Bill is designed to give the industry an opportunity to compete and to secure and provide employment for those who produce coal. The Bill gives the industry the opportunity to get itself into that posture during the period in which the aid will be available.
I turn now to the Bill. The provisions can be grouped into four parts. The first two clauses deal with the Board's capital reconstruction and its borrowing powers. Clauses 3 to 5 provide for payments of a social nature. Clauses 6 to 9 will contribute directly towards meeting the operating costs of the Board. Clause 10 provides for an increase in the membership of the Board.
The effect of Clause 1 will be to allow the Board to start its next financial year with a clean slate. Its accumulated deficit on revenue account up to next March will be in the region of £200 million.

With some minor exceptions, the £275 million allowed for a write-down of capital assets is based on a professional assessment of the reduced earning power of the Board's mineral rights, collieries and the houses associated with them. It does not cover the assets of the Board's ancillary activities, and I shall explain later how these will be dealt with.
The writing-off of £475 million of debts owing to the National Loans Fund will save the Board about £45 million a year in interest and depreciation charges. Of this the annual cost to the taxpayer in interest forgone will be some £28 million. All this debt will be written-off with effect from the end of this financial year.
Some of the provisions of Clause 2 are consequential on Clause 1. I refer to the new borrowing limit of £550 million and the new deficit limit of £50 million. The 1946 Act required that the Board should, taking one year with another, break even. The need to break even, after taking account of grants, will be one of the main financial disciplines on the Board. The Board will be expected to achieve this objective. It will, of course, be striving to avoid deficit in future, but the possibility cannot be excluded and, in the circumstances, we have decided to revert to the limits laid down in the Coal Industry Act 1967, but to retain the provision of the 1971 Act to increase these if it should prove absolutely necessary.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: My hon. Friend refers to financial disciplines. Can he tell us whether and when due financial targets are to be re-established for the Board and when we can expect to have them met?

Mr. Boardman: The Board, in preparing its forward plan in the light of reconstruction, will still have the financial objective of breaking even one year with another, and we shall on each occasion before deciding the grants which will be paid to it for the following year carry out a full review of how the Board is operating the industry, what its estimates are and whether it is asserting the appropriate financial disciplines in the exercise.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: When my hon. Friend refers to breaking even, one assumes that this is after taking account of the interest payments on written-down capital. If so,


what is the amount of these interest payments, approximately year by year, which are being written down?

Mr. Boardman: I am afraid that I cannot give my right hon. Friend that figure now. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to do so later.
The other main purpose of Clause 2 is to clarify, amend and extend the borrowing powers of the Board and its subsidiaries. I will not detain the House on the details of the Clause, which can be gone into in Committee.
Clauses 3 and 4 extend existing powers to make grants towards social costs and to make redundancy payments. The expenditure which qualifies as social costs is defined in Section 3 of the Coal Industry Act 1965. In brief, they are costs arising from contraction and redeployment, such as payments under the Redundancy Payments Act, compensation for loss of superannuation prospects, and resettlement and removal expenses. The Government's contribution is to be kept at its current level of 50 per cent. and not to decline to one-third next year as the 1971 Act provided.
The amount of expenditure under Clause 4 will depend on the future size of the industry and especially on the number of redundancies. I shall be having discussions with the Board and with the unions on these proposals for improvements in redundancy terms. The new terms will need the approval of the House and I shall be putting proposals forward when my discussions are completed. The cost to the Exchequer will, of course, be partially offset by savings on social security benefits which would otherwise be payable. There is no provision in the Bill for the continued payment of premature pensions, since Section 4 of the 1967 Act already authorises this.
Clause 5 allows the Government to contribute towards the cost of an increase in the miners pensions. At £1·50 a week, this is very small and its real value has declined over the years. The unions have asked the Board to agree an increase to £2·50 a week, and the claim is to be discussed, as will be the level of contribution to be made by those not yet retired. The limit of £25 million on our contributions is again a maximum, for the period to March, 1976.
I want to deal next with the four clauses—Clauses 6 to 9—which will help to meet the Board's operating costs as opposed to its various kinds of social expenditure. Clause 6 revives a power in the 1967 Act to pay for the costs of extra coalburn. This is a contingency measure, since the need to enable a safe margin of supplies in future may give rise to some over-supply in the shorter term. I cannot yet say how much extra coal the generating boards will burn, and there is therefore no question of giving a cost estimate yet. This will depend on the electricity industry's demand for what might be called its basic or unsupported burn, and this in turn will depend on the availability and relative price of other fuels, particularly oil.
A major difference between the 1967 provision and that in the Bill is that this time the grant will be paid to the National Coal Board itself, the real beneficiary, and not to the electricity generating boards. I am discussing with the National Coal Board and the generating boards what arrangements would be acceptable to all concerned and will report the outcome to the House in due course.

Mr. Adam Butler: On a point of clarification. Is the sum to which my hon. Friend has referred appropriate only for extra coal burn or may it also be used for maintaining the present level of coal consumption by the electricity generating boards?

Mr. Boardman: First, it is necessary to arrive at the amount of coal that would be burned by the Central Electricity Generating Board with a choice of fuels if there were no adjustment in the normal market price. The subsidy will be payable on the additional burn above that quantity.
Clause 7 is another contingency measure which will enable us to contribute towards the Board's stocking costs. This could be an alternative to extra burn and certainly use of the two powers will have to be considered together. It was, of course, a matter of judgment what level of stocks should be financed in this way. Certainly we want to see stocks build up as a precaution against interruption in the supply of other fuels. But, even so, there must be a limit to the amount of stocking we should encourage.


On the other hand, there is a minimum level of stocks which the Board should hold out of commercial prudence. We therefore intend to help with the cost of stocks above about one-twelfth of deep-mined output, but not of stocks above 30 million tonnes.
Clause 8 permits grants to producers of coking coal supplied for use in the iron and steel industry. Without subsidies our output of this essential material would inevitably decline, and we need to insure against a recurrence of the recent situation of world shortage. ECSC rules have for a number of years allowed such subsidies to he given by member States. These rules are currently under consideration within the Community, and we shall play our full part in those discussions.
The provision for a regional grant in Clause 9 reflects the importance of the NCB as an employer in the regions. Out of a total of some 266,000 miners, 114,000 work in development areas and a further 130,000 in other assisted areas. There are 27,000 miners' jobs in Scotland, 37,000 in Wales, and a further 43,000 in the North-East. Altogether three-quarters of all miners work in special development, or intermediate areas, and a further 15 per cent. are employed at pits in a derelict land clearance area. These figures speak for themselves. They speak louder still if it is remembered how many collieries are located in isolated villages, with no means of livelihood other than mining, and that over the past decade assisted areas have lost some 230,000 jobs in the coal mining industry. A further massive and rapid rundown in the coal industry would compound the regional problems which already exist.
Of course, not all the money will be spent in the regions—colliery equipment might come from elsewhere—and some of the benefits will accrue to the Board as a whole. But the purpose of this grant will be to enable the Board to moderate contraction in the regions and to give the industry a breathing space in which to re-establish itself and achieve viability. While I shall certainly not intervene in its running of the industry or seek in any way to usurp its responsibilities for such matters as pit closures, it will be responsible to us for the broad implementation of Government policy and for spending

to good effect the grants in association with it.
Clause 10 will enable us to increase the part-time members of the Board by three. This will raise the maximum number of Board members, apart from the Chairmen, from 11 to 14.
The Board is faced with the need to contain its costs, improve its productivity, extend its markets, and further the good industrial relations which now exist and to manage the new regime for its ancillary activities, which I shall shortly mention. Above all, of course, comes the need to return to viability.
Of course, these skills can be found within the Board and its employees, but, given the complexity of the issues which must now be tackled, the size of the undertaking and its impact on the national economy, it would be short-sighted to deny the Beard the opportunity to take advantage of the particular skills of anyone who can assist in these tasks.
I must again stress that the total grants provided for in the Bill are maxima and that the amount for any individual year will be fixed in advance of the year to which they relate in the light of the industry's circumstances, performance and prospects. This particularly applies to grants relating to all the Board's operating costs. The grants are not, therefore, open-ended in any way. On the contrary, it will be the responsibility of the Board so to conduct its business as to ensure that it breaks even, after taking account of what it will receive from the Government. The fact that the Board will be receiving these grants must not be allowed to reduce its responsibility for running the industry. It will be accountable for what it does, and it is our firm intention that we should in no way hamper it in the task that it and the men have set themselves of re-establishing viability. But of course we shall want to know how the public's money is being spent and be satisfied that the Board's policies are compatible with the Government's strategy.
I should now like to deal with a number of points which do not arise directly on the Bill, but upon which it is only right the House should know the position.
First comes the question of alternative employment for men who leave or find


that the traditional avenue of employment in the coal industry is not open to them. Most such people will be in areas where unemployment is already above average. I can assure the House that the Government will use all their available powers, including those in the Industry Act and its provisions for regional development grants and for selective assistance, to encourage the creation of new jobs. This drive should be the more effective because of the recent expansion of Government training and retraining facilities. I am consulting the Board and the unions to ensure that the best use is made of the resources available to the industry and to the Government in our efforts to find alternative employment in such cases.
I now turn to a different subject—the future organisation of the National Coal Board's ancillary activities. The House will remember that the Coal Industry Act 1971 authorised a review of these activities. None of these activities has a direct relationship with the Board's primary duty of producing coal. They fall, broadly speaking, into two groups: those concerned with coal distribution and those concerned with North Sea gas and the processing of coal or its by-products.
The utility of some of these activities to the Board has been challenged. Following our review, the Board has agreed with me on a reorganisation which will allow it to concentrate on its main activities. This reorganisation, which the Board will be implementing as soon as it can, will enable any new financial requirements of the ancillary activities to be met from the private sector, which I believe is the right source.
In order to make private sector participation possible, these ancillary activities will be organised as separate subsidiary companies, some of which will be wholly-owned in the first instance, which will be grouped under two holding companies. All these companies will be registered under the Companies Act. One holding company will become responsible for what are now the activities of the Coal Products Division, including North Sea gas; the other for the miscellaneous group of activities mainly concerned with fuel distribution. The board of each holding company will include outside

directors. The assets will initially be transferred at book value, but the board will carry out a full revaluation of the assets of each holding company, taking professional advice as necessary.
The constitution of both the subsidiary companies and the holding companies will be such that private participation will he possible, and it is there that these concerns will look for the finance which will be required to carry on their work. But my consent will be required for the raising of new capital by a wholly-owned subsidiary. I believe that this is a proper and sensible arrangement.

Mr. Peter Hardy: I do not wish to argue the principle of the matter. Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that he will resist any reduction in the public stake in North Sea oil and gas ventures in which the National Coal Board is involved in view of the vast profits, perhaps unforeseen, which the Government are allowing foreign companies to make?

Mr. Boardman: I do not propose in this debate to discuss the question of North Sea oil and gas. I am talking only about the organisation that will arise, and I am making it clear that this will be in a separate company. I am making it clear, too, that the financing of the private companies and ancillary activities should come from the private sector.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: There are differences of opinion about the way in which these ancillary activities are to be organised. Nevertheless, in view of all the public furore over the last 12 months about National Coal Board personnel being involved in industries supplying goods to the board will the hon. Gentleman issue a directive that no one in the higher echelons of the National Coal Board management may have shares in these ancillary suppliers?

Mr. Boardman: I do not think that it would be right to act on allegations in the Press which have not been proved and which are the subject of investigation. I am sure that the National Coal Board will ensure that the proper standards and disciplines are applied when there is a conflict of interest between the responsibility of members to the board and their personal outside interests.
The board has told me that it has decided, on commercial grounds, to withdraw completely from some of its activities.

Mr. Eric G. Varley: Which ones?

Mr. Boardman: For example, the board has already disposed of interests in computerised hotel reservations and concrete products, and, as I told the House on 19th October, it is the board's policy to sell its brickworks. It is also urgently reviewing its land and property holdings with a view to the rapid disposal of any not required for its commercial activities.
Another point upon which I should touch is the small, independently owned mines. The House will remember that on 6th March the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that the Government would give sympathetic consideration to the difficulties which these mines faced. They were undoubtedly hit hard by the miners' strike last year and the fact that they had to pay the increased wages which resulted from it. I am glad to be able to tell the House that at my request the board has agreed to reduce the royalties which the licencees pay. In addition, licensed mines will qualify to the same extent as National Coal Board pits for the coking coal subsidy under Clause 8 and their workers will benefit from any improvements in redundancy terms.
Finally, I come to the total bill which the nation will have to pay. Of course, it is a very large one, but the total is not in itself a fair indication of the cost to the nation. If the coal industry were allowed to collapse we should be facing enormous expenditure on unemployment and other such benefits. Moreover, our import bill would be increased because we would need to replace present supplies of indigenous fuel.
I have already made it plain that in each case the figures are maxima. The exact amount to be paid each year will depend upon the progress of events and the way in which the industry is responding to the challenge before it, for such massive support from public funds can be justified only by a strenuous and

whole-hearted response from those in the industry themselves to make every effort that they can to improve coal's competitive position.
The House will know that before we put our proposals forward I asked both sides of the industry to let me know what steps they were prepared to take to this end. This led to an unprecedented cooperative exercise by management and the unions in working out proposals of their own which I have discussed fully with them. As a result, both sides have expressed a determination to hold—and if possible extend—markets, to increase productivity and to contain costs. I am glad to note that output per man shift has set a new record in each of the last three weeks. The unions are also pledged to try to settle differences by discussion and negotiation, or by arbitration, and to avoid industrial action if at all possible. I welcome this new spirit of co-operation. Of course, we shall have to see what happens, but I am convinced that the great majority of the men in the industry want to see it succeed.
I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing that the industry's response will be as adequate as I expect and that it will not be too long before we can look forward to seeing a coal industry capable of competing fairly and fully with all comers.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Eric G. Varley: This is the last Bill to come before the House in 1972, and to hon. Members on this side of the House there could not be a better way to conclude the celebrations for the National Coal Board's jubilee year. Nicely timed for Christmas, Parliament is playing Santa Claus to the coal-mining industry. So, apart from a few quavering protests that we can expect from honourable ghosts of Christmas past on the back benches opposite—I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) is not here—we can settle down to a cosy Second Reading debate. It is nearly all sweetness and light, and I think that, thanks partly to Clause 6, for some considerable time to come that light will be generated by coal-fired electricity.
It was not always like this. It was not like this 10 months ago. It was not like


this when the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) tabled his motion on a Friday afternoon castigating the coal-miners. There were some threats and dire warning about the folly of the miners in destroying their own industry. We were warned that pits would be closed, that they had been suicidally sacrificed, and that it was all the result of the strike. But when one looks at what has happened—and I think that the Minister was honest in acknowledging this—one finds that not one pit has been closed purely as a result of the physical effects of the strike.
There were prognostications from some informed commentators, including that all-wise and all-knowing journal the Economist, that the industry was more or less a write-off, and that prophecy has proved to be equally stupid. I wonder what is in the mind of the Daily Telegraph leader writer today when he looks back on what he wrote on 26th February 1972:
the contraction of the British coal industry must be accelerated, even if this means more trouble with the miners. A featherbedded industry producing 140 million tons of coal each year is an expensive luxury which this country can afford no longer".
I also wonder what the Sunday Times now thinks, because on 20th February 1972 it had the headline "Farewell, King Coal"—the King is dead, long live the King.
Things improved, and most of those dire warnings have proved to be nonsense. Mr. Ezra, to his credit, decided that he had to start to rebuild his bridges with the miners. A plan was worked out to bring new life and new hope to the coal industry and this Bill, involving as it does hundreds of millions of pounds, is right and is a credit to those in the industry. The Government for their part seem to have learned their lesson. As far as I can make out—although we shall want to examine the matter closely—there is no more of the extreme talk about hiving-off.
Certainly the Eden-Ridley axis has been broken, and we shall want to look at the situation in Committee. We ought to call this Coal Industry Bill the Consensus Bill to distinguish it from the 1971 Confrontation Bill. This Bill helpfully sets out rules regulating some of the borrowing powers of the National Coal Board's subsidiary companies. We shall

want to look at that closely and study the words of the hon. Gentleman today.
We heard, for example, that only this week the Coal Board is to set up two holding companies—I think that the Minister described them as being for non-coalmining activities—which will have a very fruitful future. Certainly a fruitful future is envisaged for them.
Matters proceeded constructively, and last August we were all set for a statement from the Government setting out their approval for a new plan for the future of the coal industry. On the Opposition side of the House, we know that the plan was ready by 7th August. The Department of Trade and Industry and the National Coal Board, as we understand it, had agreed the terms of that statement, and this was widely known throughout the industry. This is only speculation, but the plan was ready, we think, in August, and we think that a suitably meek Government back bencher had been selected for the honour of tabling a planted Question.
But then at the last minute the Prime Minister stepped in. He probably recalled his own categorical statement made to the House on 17th November 1970, when in answer to a Question he said:
The Government are not prepared to increase subsidies for nationalised industries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1034.]
Perhaps he was the last person in the country who still believed those words. At any rate, he chewed them over very slowly and it took him another four months to swallow them. Meanwhile, back went the coal plan into the melting pot, and then the face-saving tripartite talks were called. After four months of toil and trouble, the Prime Minister's firm stand was vindicated. Precisely the same plan was produced in December as had been vetoed in August—with one small amendment. The estimated cost to the Government between those two dates rose from £700 million to £1,200 million. Of this, we think that £90 million should be debited to the Prime Minister's personal account, because this was the direct cost of the coal strike brought about by his confrontation policies, the old confrontation policies which he will no doubt nostalgically remember as he


warms his hands over his coal fire at Chequers this Christmas.
So although it is a little late, the Bill is very welcome. It would be presumptuous of me to attempt to improve upon the explanation and outline of the Bill which we have heard from the Minister, briefed as he has been by officials and civil servants who have lived with the draft of the Bill for so many months. Nor can I improve on the very sound reasons the Minister advanced, none of which I would fault, in presenting the Bill. That does not mean that the Opposition regard it as the last word in perfection. In Committee we shall want to do our best to see whether we can improve it. No doubt we shall have the help of Conservative hon. Members; perhaps the help of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), who helped us on the last occasion on which we had a Coal Industry Bill in Committee.
For example, we are not exactly satisfied with Clause 3, which empowers the Government to make grants at a rate not exceeding 50 per cent. to meet expenditure on specified items arising from manpower redeployment and contraction.
The Money Resolution is drawn fairly tightly on this and perhaps the Government might have another look at that and submit an amended money resolution at some stage. We certainly prefer the recommendation at point 7 of the 10-point plan of the National Coal Board and the unions, which called upon the Government and the European Coal and Steel Community to meet social costs in full. We shall want to be kept fully informed about the formula to be worked out to compensate the two electricity generating boards for extra coal burned. In Committee, we might even have a go at putting right Clause 7 of the 1971 Act.
With this Bill we now have an opportunity of setting the coal industry on a path of co-operation and progress, with the National Coal Board and the unions working more closely together than ever before. We welcome the decision of the Coal Board to open its books to the unions. We welcome the agreement to set up a joint policy advisory committee. We welcome the indication by Mr. Ezra that he sees no reason why miners' representatives should not come on to the

board. Perhaps the Minister could make use of the powers he is taking in Clause 10 to help this along. We do not know about that. The Minister has not explained that. Perhaps the Minister who is to wind up the debate will say much more about how he sees the additional board membership and the places to be taken up.
The miners, for their part, have shown how much they can contribute. As I think the Minister said, productivity over the last few weeks has reached an all-time record. Only the other day Mr. Ezra said that the industry is operating at the highest level of efficiency it has ever achieved. We can compare this achievement with that of coal industries in other European countries which are already State-aided as much as or far more than our National Coal Board will be when the Bill is passed. They are crying out for still more aid.
Even in today's Press reports there are heartrending pictures of the plight of the West German industry which, as the House knows, is our biggest competitor in Western Europe. The power stations in North Germany are able to buy British coal much more cheaply than coal mined in the Ruhr, even though German coal is at present much more heavily subsidised, and even though last year, before the strike and before the overtime ban, coal was being produced at a profit in this country while in the Ruhr it was being mined at a deficit. The productivity of our coalminers far outstrips that of those in any of the coal industries in Western Europe.
The Government have belatedly, but at any rate sensibly, recognised the National Coal Board's contribution to that productivity and to things like regional employment. As the Minister said, about 76 per cent. of coal is mined in assisted areas and another 16 per cent. in derelict land clearance areas. So, even more belatedly, we think, the Government and Conservative hon. Members have awakened to the coal industry's unique and indispensable contribution to energy needs. The Government, I think, are now even accepting the need to have realistic pricing policies. I commend the Secretary of State for having taken on board the fact, as he put it so well on the day of his statement:
that fuels which appear to be expensive at present may prove to be rather cheaper


in years to come."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1972; Vol. 848, c. 35.]
He is right. It was equally well put only last month in the National Westminster Bank Quarterly Review by Mr. Derek Ezra, when he said:
While part of Europe's coal production is uncompetitive with oil and other fuels today, it seems likely that it will be much more competitive by the 1980s.
The Secretary of State has acknowledged this on numerous occasions, the latest of those being on 11th December. Speaking about trends developing in worldwide energy demand which make it vital to conserve our basic resources, he said:
Some major European countries and the United States are aware of the impending problerns."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1972; Vol. 848, c. 35.]
That was in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie).
There are problems. Nuclear power, the potentialities of which we all wish to see realised, is coming along extremely slowly. Dungeness "B" power station is already four years behind schedule and is likely to cost more than double the original estimate of between £80 million and £90 million.
Supplies of natural gas, a clean and useful fuel, are of limited duration. Only last week, Mr. John Licence the Gas Council's chief economist, warned that it would cost more and that it would be a great mistake to use this excellent domestic fuel for raising steam in power stations. I hope that the Government will reject the misguided idea put forward in the latest Annual Report of the Central Electricity Generating Board that it should have more North Sea gas. Oil from the Middle East is of course plentiful, but it is going up in price all the time. The oil-producing countries of the Middle East are determined—

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware, in this age of environmental considerations, that coal which comes from Yorkshire has a sulphur content of 2 per cent.? He is arguing that natural gas, which has no sulphur content, should be used in place of this coal in power stations.

Mr. Farley: That is a fair point. We want to know much more about the potentialities of natural gas in the North

Sea. But it is undeniable that the Government are not enthusiastic about allowing the CEGB to have it. Nor is the Gas Council. They are both right. Until we know much more about natural gas, it is right that it should be restricted. We think coal is an admirable fuel for steam raising in power stations.
Returning to oil in the Middle East, it is true that it is plentiful, but it is rising in price all the time. The oil-producing countries of the Middle East are determined to extract as much revenue as they can from their oil resources. I only wish that the British Government would take a leaf out of that book in their approach to royalties in the North Sea. Perhaps they should emulate what the oil sheiks are doing through OPEC on this matter.
So the price of Middle East oil is steadily rising, and it is certain to be driven up further in satisfying the needs of the United States, which is about to become a net importer of oil on an astronomical scale. The dimensions of the United States energy crisis, which will have an impact on the rest of the developed nations, can be gauged by the estimate that the US adverse balance of payments for oil alone could rise from just over two billion dollars today to about 30 billion dollars in little more than ten years.
It is no wonder that President Nixon's adviser on supplies of strategic minerals in The Observer only the other day, 17th December, was reported as saying, in connection with the United States energy prices, that energy
… is going to replace the cold war as perhaps the most urgent problem America faces in the years ahead … our society, our position n the world, our very way of life, its quality and goals, are dependent on how well we meet this challenge.
So it is no wonder that America is aiming to double its coal output by 1985 and to recruit and train up to 50,000 additional mineworkers by 1975.
It is no wonder either that the Consultative Committee of the European Coal and Steel Community has been urging Britain and her future EEC partners to promote their coal mining industries in order to avoid an over-dependence, as they put it, on non-member countries for energy requirements.
Nor is it any wonder that Lord Rothschild, the Government's multipurpose guided missile, has been set to work to develop what the Secretary of State now calls a total energy policy. We want to be kept fully informed about Lord Rothschild's progress and certainly of any detailed conclusions that he reaches in his study.
All those who confidently tell us that all our energy requirements are about to be solved by North Sea oil should remember that this latest and extremely welcome addition to our energy resources is unlikely to be with us until 1974, and then only very slowly. It will be several more years before we have ample quantities of North Sea oil. It, too, is of limited duration so far as we know. It is very hard and expensive to get—quite as expensive as Middle East oil. It was pointed out only this week by the North East Scotland Development Authority that Britain will never be self-sufficient in oil.
It is against that background that Sir David Barran, when Chairman of Shell, made a great deal of sense earlier this year when he urged the Government to encourage
… mining all the coal which can be got out of the ground economically.
Of course, the word "economically" must be interpreted in the light of the Secretary of State's new and enlightened approach on this matter.
It is estimated that accessible reserves of economically workable coal amount to 4,000 million tons and that unproven reserves of virgin coal may contain a further 12,000 million tons. So, for Britain, coal is not just a second best. In some respects, it is our lifeline.
The Government have recognised this by bringing forward the Bill and in our discussions they should provide further encouragement for the industry by announcing that Drax B power station will be coal-fired. They should not necessarily say that it is something for the CEGB to decide; the Government must take the initiative. If this were announced, it would encourage the National Coal Board to sink a new pit in North Yorkshire, somewhere around Selby, drawing further on our coal reserves and producing more job opportunities. Such an

announcement would make plain the Government's recognition that expanding coal production is not an adjunct to social policy, not a kind of underground soup kitchen, as the Economist will probably tell us at the weekend, but an essential strategic resource, precious to this country's future.
We welcome this Bill and, if it proves to be necessary, we will vote for it—[Laughter.] If there is any trouble on the opposite side of the House, we are always prepared, on a matter of this sort, to come to the aid of the Government. We do this because we on this side of the House are the party who represent the coalminers of this country. We are certainly pleased that we are present today at King Coal's coronation.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. Peter Rees: This is indeed an annus mirabilis. We end 1972 with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) pledging his support for the Government in this highly important measure. I can only say to the Minister—I hope that I will be forgiven for lapsing into bad Latin—"Timeo danos". I would be extremely suspicious of any Bill which commanded the whole-hearted support of both the NUM and hon. Members opposite.
This is an annus mirabilis for many reasons. Those who might have had good reason to expect to bask in the sun of this Government's approval have been turned away into the shade. Forestry, for instance, may now be denied dedication grants. The apple growers of East Kent have viewed with dismay the increase in the quotas for foreign apples. They, alas, have not benefited from the Christmas benevolence of the Government whom they supported so valiantly at the polls.
On the other hand, those who have regarded themselves in the past as the undying opponents of this Government now find themselves the unexpected beneficiaries of lavish generosity. Indeed, it must be unexpected, to judge from the cries of delight which we have heard from the benches opposite.
Having the privilege to represent Dover and Deal, I of course welcome certain aspects of the Bill. I hope that the future of the three pits in my constituency will be underwritten for many


years ahead by the generosity of my hon. Friend. It would be churlish of me not to pay tribute to him for this. There is a steady demand for coking coal which can be produced by those pits and I hope that they will supply that demand for many years to come.
I do not pretend to understand the working of Clause 8 in detail or to know exactly how the Minister proposes to secure the supply of coking coal, but I cannot but feel that my pits will be beneficiaries of his unexampled generosity. 1 therefore welcome the Bill for that reason. I think, as the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers in my part of the world have stated in the Press, that it will do wonders for the morale of those who work in the pits in East Kent. I think it will give the lie to those cynics who say that a pit gives of its best only when it is under a jeopardy notice. I hope that with this unexampled generosity from the Government they will give of their best and that we shall have a dramatic increase in production.
Beyond my constituency interest I welcome what my hon. Friend said about the peripheral activities of the National Coal Board. I have never felt that the National Coal Board, unlike any other commercial entity, should be debarred from extending its activities into what I call peripheral activities. Provided that there is some logical commercial link between the two, it is fair that it should extend its considerable expertise into other fields.
I have always advocated that there should be an opportunity for private capital to participate. Therefore, I welcome my hon. Friend's imaginative proposals which I am sure will command support on this side of the House. This injection of private capital—the alliance of private and public capital—I am sure, will be fruitful, and both sides of the industry will profit from it.
I also welcome my hon. Friend's proposal—or perhaps it is Mr. Ezra's proposal—that the National Coal Board should divest itself of unnecessary assets and land. My hon. Friend has not condescended to quantify how much money he feels may be raised in this manner. It is important that we should know in broad terms what kind of sums could be made available. This must in a sense

condition our approach to the Bill. If the National Coal Board has assets worth £200 million or £300 million of which it cannot make proper use, it may be that there will not be the need for these massive sums. We hope that the huge figures mentioned will be maxima, and we hope also that the National Coal Board, by prudent husbanding of its own resources, will be able to capitalise itself.
If I welcome the Bill for those two reasons, that does not mean that I am required to abdicate my critical faculties. If my hon. Friend will allow me to say so, he and the hon. Member for Chesterfield, who I regret has left the Chamber for the moment, were long on analysis but very short on detailed exposition of the solutions which they propose for the coal industry. There was a curious gap in their reasoning. We accept the analysis which perhaps has led my hon. Friend to the conclusions which he has put to us. We recognise that the country should never be dependent on one type of fuel alone. We do not want to become dependent on the oil-producing countries of the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf. This must be common ground between all sensible thinking people in this country.
But my hon. Friend has not deployed in any detail—and with wisdom, perhaps, he has not promised us a White Paper on fuel—or made any forecasts on how far we shall be dependent in the 1980s on foreign sources of fuel. However, accepting his analysis, to what is this Bill directed? Are we to judge it as a social or a commercial measure? The Bill could perhaps be commended on both grounds, but if I, as a relatively new Member of the House, may be permitted a criticism of most post-war Governments, it is that we have never been given very clear criteria with which to judge this type of measure. Are we to accept this Bill on the ground that the coal industry needs a massive injection of capital to mechanise itself, to bring itself up to date and make itself competitive with the industries of Germany or the United States of America? Or is this a social measure to cushion the inevitable rundown of the manpower needed to produce the coal which we need? Which is it? I should have preferred a much clearer statement of my hon. Friend's approach to the Bill. I am left in some doubt.
My hon. Friend said that the Government decided that they could not face a rundown in the short term of the appropriate level of the industry. What is the right level? I will not talk about a decline of the coal industry; we are talking about a slimming down process—perhaps even a rejuvenation. Over what period is this process to run? Are we really only talking about a massive social subsidy to the National Coal Board to mitigate the social consequences of the diminution of its demands on labour? If it is that, could we hear a great deal more about the type of rundown that is expected? Could we be permitted to debate a detailed plan?
It was made clear in my right hon. Friend's statement of 11th December that the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers were considering this problem together. I am delighted to hear that the gap that had opened between them in February last year has closed. If it is closed, what kind of plans are they working out together?
If this is a commercial measure, what kind of plans are they working out together for more advanced mechanisation in the pits? Shall we see more sophisticated cutters? Have plans been worked out for reducing the number of men needed for this kind of machinery? All these questions are left very much unanswered by my hon. Friend, and it is only right that we should pose them.
It may be said that these are detailed matters that must be left to the National Coal Board. I have the greatest respect for Mr. Ezra and his colleagues. Against considerable odds they have run a massive industry with substantial inherited difficulties. But I should like to know, if not from my hon. Friend at least from the Coal Board, what kind of plans they would like us to consider. If one pauses to think, one realises that no private industry could have written off half its share capital and then gone to the market to raise £500 million, without putting forward far more detailed plans than we have been given today.
I repeat the question: is this a commercial or a social measure? If it is a commercial measure, how long will it be before the National Coal Board expects to be able to compete on level terms with

any coal industry across the world? I am sure most hon. Members want this. I have always wanted the coal industry to be a commercial industry, commercially viable, paying commercial wages. What has bedevilled the coal industry is this. It has been treated for far too long by Governments of both political complexions as a kind of social vehicle, and as a result we have never had a clear commercial look at it. It has not been in a position to pay commercial wages. I hope that with this massive injection of capital, with the strike of last February long behind it, this will set the industry on its feet. This is only a pious hope on my part. I have not got the facts and projections which I would like to have if I had to justify this measure outside the House.
I have listened with interest and sympathy to my hon. Friend. I am aware of his commercial acumen. We are very fortunate to have in charge of the destinies of the Coal Board someone with such commercial experience. I therefore give my hon. Friend the benefit of the doubt. All the same, if we are to have meaningful debates on the coal industry, we cannot shelter behind the fiction that these are details which must be left to the National Coal Board. If this is the true position, it is a damning indictment of all nationalised industry because it is not under proper control by the legislature which is ultimately responsible for financing it.
I hope that I have not been unduly carping at this season of goodwill. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield said, whatever else happens to my hon. Friend in what I hope will be a long and distinguished career. he has secured a niche for himself as the Santa Claus of the coal industry.
I end on a more serious note. I have heard it said all too often, both inside and outside the House, that the country owes something special to the coal industry. It may do, and I am sure that Labour Members will make the point. We all know the industry's history. We do not have to have worked with our hands at the pit face to know about the past. A mere lawyer knows a little about the conditions in which coal is mined. But if the country has owed a special debt to the industry, I hope that hon. Members on both sides will recognise that


if the Bill becomes law the Government, a Conservative Government, will have discharged that debt.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Alan Fitch: I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) will forgive me if I do not follow the line of his interesting remarks.
I hope that I am right in thinking that the Bill means the realisation by the Government, after much prodding by the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal Board, that it is in the national interest that the industry should not be allowed to contract any more. I hope, too, that it is not just a matter of maintaining the stains quo, but that the industry will expand and that the Bill is the first step towards that end.
There is a growing realisation in both Russia and America, and we hope in the EEC, that if a fuel crisis is to be avoided the production of coal must be increased. Those of us with experience in the industry have been pressing for a long time that coal production should be increased to avoid the probable shortage of this fuel in the 1980s. I make no apology for repeating the statement that we are precariously dependent on oil from abroad to meet half our energy needs. There is no need for that when we have more than a century's reserves of coal at the present rate of production. Why rely so heavily on imported oil, a burden on our balance of payments, which may be under pressure again very soon, when there is no balance of payments problem in the mining of coal?
An interesting document, one of the best on the subject of energy, was published recently by the NUM. In the document, entitled "National Energy Policy", the union gives a grave warning of a potential energy crisis by 1980 and calls for a radical reshaping of the Government's energy policy to avoid the crisis. It says:
What is not profitable now may be profitable in 1985.
In other words, it is right that the industry should be subsidised now in the interests of the country in the future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) drew attention to a report in last Sunday's Observer

by its American correspondent, who wrote:
America is approaching Christmas, uneasy about whether she has gathered enough winter fuel.
We are not particularly interested in the short-term lack of fuel of the American economy, but the writer said something very important. He quoted a statement by President Nixon's fuel adviser that the shortage of fuel was likely to take priority even over the cold war. That suggests that the American Government are treating very seriously the possibility of a fuel shortage in the next decade, and in particular a coal shortage. We must do the same.
Of particular interest in the Bill is the reduction of the NCB's outstanding liabilities, as outlined in Clause I. This is long overdue. The burden of debt and the interest thereon which is resting on the shoulders of the NCB is grossly out of proportion to its assets. This has been particularly so since 1965, when the pit closure programme was accelerated and became very considerable. It led to a reduction of assets without a relatively corresponding decrease in debt. One thing that the clause does is to redress the balance.
The industry deserves Government help for many reasons, if for no other than that it has made great and successful efforts to improve itself. Figures have been given by both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield. We have had new productivity records, the highest for 20 months. Coal sales arc rising, for the first time for two years. Stocks have been built up to a pre-strike position. As the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Derek Ezra, has said:
These major achievements in productivity and sales are real proof of the determination, co-operation and involvement of the industry's team of 300,000 people to ensure that coal remains a competitive fuel and a big business in Britain.
Another promising aspect of the industry is the recent development of even closer co-operation between the union and the Board, resulting in a newly-formed Joint Policy Advisory Committee. I hope that the Press, which all too often gives false impressions of the negative attitude of the trade union movement in general, will this time highlight what is


going on in the coal industry, and particularly the contribution being made by the NUM.
The Advisory Committee has recently sponsored a joint sales drive. In the past few weeks 3,500 sales leads for heating installations passed on by employees—members of the NUM, among others—have resulted in an increase in business. Of those sales leads, 500 have come from my own area of Lancashire.
I hope that I shall be forgiven if I become parochial now and say something about the North-West coalfield, where we have difficult geological conditions. There are difficult geological conditions in many other coalfields, but in the North-West they are particularly difficult. However, we also have some great assets. First, we are very close to the consumer. Secondly, the coal is generally of very good quality. Thirdly, we have a tradition of good coal preparation, so that customers have an assurance of quality and efficiency.
The Minister gave some indication that talks were proceeding with the National Union of Mineworkers over an improved redundancy payment scheme. This is overdue. At present there are 12,000 men in the industry over the age of 55 who are in receipt of redundancy pay. The present scheme provides payments of 90 per cent. of a man's average earnings for up to three years. At the time it was negotiated it was accepted as a good arrangement. Since then more attractive schemes have been brought into being, for instance for the dockers and the railwaymen. I hope that in these negotiations the Government will take such factors into account.
One thing that pleases me about the Bill is that there are to be regional grants. This is important for an area such as Lancashire which is in an intermediate area. As the coalmining industry is labour-intensive rather than capital-intensive it is important that employment in areas such as Lancashire should be maintained.
Clause 10 deals with an increase in membership of the Board. It would be interesting to know why the Board is to be increased and what sort of people the Government have in mind. I hope that the additional two or three members will

be drawn from people with trade union experience. It is rather difficult to know what is behind the Government's thinking in increasing the membership.
I turn to the European Coal and Steel Community. We obviously cannot discuss a Bill such as this and ignore the Community. It is right that in producing such a Bill as this the Government should have borne the Community in mind. The President of the NUM, Mr. Gormley, in his presidential address to our annual conference last July, pointed out that the British steel and coal industries would automatically become members of the Community as from 1st January 1973. They were the only two industries to be directly affected from that date. It was therefore in the interests of miners that they should be represented and I welcome the fact that both of our leading officials, the President and the Secretary, have been asked by the union to sit on the powerful European Coal and Steel Community Consultative Committee. By doing so they will be able to act in a way that will be of benefit to members of the union.
We should consider to what extent the Common Market countries subsidise their coal industries. I want to go into a little more detail on this than some other hon. Members have done. On a per ton basis, the German coal industry received a subsidy of 65p for each ton produced in 1971 and about 80 p per ton this year. By comparison the French industry obtained £2·55 per ton in 1971 and £2·35 per ton this year while the Belgian industry received £3 a ton in 1971 and £2·72 this year. The Dutch received just over £2 last year and £2·35 in 1972.

Mr. Skeet: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the three countries he has cited, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, have a production of 33 million tons, 11 million tons and 3·8 million tons? We therefore reach this conclusion, that subsidies in the Community are highest where production is least.

Mr. Fitch: I have reached that conclusion. The subsidy on German coal, where production is highest, is the least.
I understand that the Dutch Government confirmed in October last year that all Dutch mines will close by 1975. The Belgian, French and German Governments remain determined to maintain


their coal industry. Speaking of Europe generally—and I do not intend to be controversial because this is not a controversial matter—Europe needs a well-organised long-term energy plan that places the coal industry in a well-defined role. We must all of us, when we enter the Community, work towards that end.
The Community makes grants towards the social costs of manpower deployment and to deal with any contraction in the industry. These grants are payable to Governments who pass them on to the industries concerned. Is it the intention of the Government that this will happen here, that any payments made by the European Coal and Steel Community to the Government will be passed on to the British coal industry? The Minister commented on Clause 4 and said that the minimum grant for stocking will be one-twelfth of annual production. That is in line with Community pressures.
After food and water, energy is the most essential ingredient of modern living. No industrial country can afford to take risks here. The Government have done the right thing in heeding the warning of all sections of the mining industry to take seriously the fact that the world energy market will need an expanding coal industry if a serious fuel famine is to be avoided in a decade's time.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Stewart-Smith: At last a Government have arrived who manifestly have confidence in the coal mining industry. Not only have they got confidence in it but they have given it the resources to do its job. Some on these benches have been saying or implying that the Government have gone too far.

Mr. Skeet: Hear, hear.

Mr. Stewart-Smith: I take exactly the opposite view. I do not believe that the Government have gone far enough.

Mr. Hardy: Hear, hear.

Mr. Stewart-Smith: I do not want to see the output of the mining industry remain at its present level and I urge the Government to use all the power at their command to press the Coal Board to increase the total tonnage. What I am saying may appear to be revolutionary, especially among those who habitually

regard the mining industry as being irrevocably committed to decline.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union not only intend to increase production but have actually done so. There is an upturn in their production. They both have massive quantities of indigenous oil at their command which we have not. The United States output used to be 590 million tons in 1970. It is planning to raise it to 1,171 million tons by 1985. That is America, with all its great reserves of power.
In recommending such a course I am motivated entirely by the strategic self-interest of this nation. I feel strongly that the Government must face the fact that we are heading for an extremely unpleasant international energy shortage. Oil used to be a buyer's market. The hon. Member far Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) implied that there is a lot of oil about. In fact it is becoming a seller's market, and I believe that oil will inevitably lose its competitive advantage which it has at the moment over coal, and much more quickly than is generally expected.

Mr. Skeet: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is enough uranium in the world to provide energy for a population three to four times the existing size, and that within a mile of the earth's crust there are 2½ trillion tons of uranium available? How can he possibly argue that there will be a shortage of world energy?

Mr. Stewart-Smith: Let me continue my argument and make my points. It will take some time before that uranium set in the earth's crust is actually made available in terms of power for British industry. There will be some period which we shall have to bridge.

Mr. Hardy: There is, of course, a vast quantity of uranium, but the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) may not be aware that 6,000 miners in the United States of America are suffering from a fatal disease as a result of that industrial activity.

Mr. Stewart-Smith: Yes; and I will come to exactly how efficiently nuclear energy power can be provided.
In a report produced by the NUM and the NCB, "Coal and Energy Policy in Europe", it is revealed that the United States, Western Europe and Japan will


be increasingly large importers of oil in the years which lie immediately ahead. United States output is estimated to be capable of only maintaining its present level at the moment. Although the hon. Member for Chesterfield touched on this generally he did not stress sufficiently the urgency of the situation. It is expected that the United States oil requirement will double in 15 years.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Tugendhat) who was with me on the Financial Times, wrote in that paper on 25th October 1972 of United States oil imports:
By 1980 its oil imports could be running at the rate of 12 million barrels a day; that is the same as Western Europe's total present day consumption.
Furthermore, in the Petroleum Times of 28th July 1972 John McLean, chairman of Continental Oil, stated:
Imports are projected to more than quadruple, reaching a level of about 15 million barrels a day in 1985, a quantity equal to the entire output of the Middle East at the present rates of production.
That is the scale of the problem we are facing. The United States will have to compete not only with Western Europe but with Japan for the available oil from the producer countries. Another aspect of this which worries me is that United States companies, from their natural patriotism, may switch from supplying Europe to supplying their own home market and may be encouraged to do so by financial inducements.
The seriousness of the situation is most stressed by the fact that Western Europe will double its requirement for oil by the mid-1980's. This is bound to cause irresistible pressure for the price of oil to go up more steeply than is anticipated.
I want to take issue with the NUM-NCB report "Coal and Energy Policy in Europe" because the authors have overlooked yet another important factor in this argument. The Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc will themselves be large oil buyers in future as well. According to an estimate made in January 1971 by the Deputy-Minister of Oil in the Soviet Union, the Soviet bloc countries might be net importers of oil by 1980 to the extent of between 10 million and 30 million tons a year. Since that estimate was

given the position regarding their requirement has deteriorated due to a substantial increase in their domestic vehicle production. Soviet oil imports from the Middle East are running now at 5 million tons, and the revised estimate for 1980 is a requirement of some 110 million tons of oil.
In view of what I have said it seems to me to be sheer lunacy for the Government not to do everything in their power to expand—actually to expand—British coal production. This nation simply cannot allow itself to be dependent on insecure foreign oil imports, the cost of which is bound now to go up for the reasons I have stated.

Mr. Skeet: If the market for coal is markedly increased—doubled—and if production is well beyond that, what shall we do with the coal? Are we to keep it in stock and nay for it there? The industry would be unning, at a loss.

Mr. Stewart-Smith: The point I am trying to make is that if in the immediate future the price of oil is to go up coal will regain its competitive position, and we must be in a position to exploit this and not allow the industry to stagnate.
I feel intensely that we must exploit these reserves of latent energy which we have in our country and under our own control. The Government must ensure security of supplies of power to industry, otherwise industry will be paralysed. As is generally known, there are 100 years' worth of coal under our very feet. We all of us know in our constituencies where there are large reserves and where they should be exploited. I hope that the National Coal Board will put in hand feasibility studies for future expansion where these reserves lie and where they can be exploited.
Those of us here in this House who have the miners' interests at heart have to make decisions to make sure that the coal which is mined is sold. To take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), if we cannot sell the coal there is no point in extracting it.

Mr. Skeet: Exactly.

Mr. Stewart-Smith: It is, of course, the National Coal Board which pays the miners' wages, but the money is paid to


the board by the customers, mainly the power stations and the generating industry, but ultimately by industry, and the men who work in the coal industry are paid by the consumer. Because the forecasts of Britain's energy requirements are so large I believe that, despite North Sea oil and gas, we shall need all the coal we can get for our own internal requirements.
Some people maintain that we shall not need coal because of the imminent arival of massive amounts of nuclear power. I would simply point to the National Union of Mineworkers' report, "National Energy Policy", in which it stated that:
The contribution of energy from nuclear power stations has fallen over recent years …. In 1969, 10·5 million tons of coal equivalent were produced. This fell to 9·4 million tons of coal equivalent in 1970, with 9·7 million tons of coal equivalent in 1971.
So despite all the high-sounding promises we have had and the massive amounts of capital put into the nuclear power industry, it is not delivering the goods. It may be that it will, and I hope it will, but they are not here yet and they are not imminent.
So I am quite certain that there is room for both more nuclear power and more coal, not just in an expanding British economy and for our expanding industry, but because I believe that the long-term major outlet for British coal lies in the industry of Western Europe, particularly in the industry of Germany.
That contention is in many ways endorsed by the report of the NUM and NCB, "Coal and Energy Policy in Europe", because they say:
Here the British coal industry which produces mainly steam-raising coals can play a particularly important part. Over the last decade, in spite of many difficulties, the cost of British coal has remained stable in real terms. Given the right policy framework a similar performance can be achieved in future. This, together with escalating oil prices later in the decade, could transform the relative economic position of indigenous steam-raising coal.
It is access to this European market which is vital for the industry, and the miners' true friends should have been working for this for the miners' benefit.
It is worth recalling what decisions the NUM-sponsored Members on the benches opposite made in this vital matter. Did they decide to do what was

best for the miners or what was best for the Labour Party? Where was their loyalty? Where was their vision of the future. How far-seeing were they? They seem to have shown the intellectual horizons of a mole. On that historic night of 28th October 1971, 17 NUM-sponsored Members voted like sheep against entry into Europe. Only one voted in favour, the right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), and he was roasted by the unions for doing so.
Miners naturally look to us to assure their future. It is we who have given them preferential access to this vital market. It is thanks to the Conservative Party and forward-seeing and courageous Labour Members of Parliament that this situation has arisen. The Labour Party in this vital respect has shown itself to have operated against the miners' interests and allowed dogma to triumph over the miners' well-being. Let the miners ponder that and they will see where their true friends are—on this side of the House.
Naturally I congratulate the Government on the scale of their generosity and vision—£1,000 million is beyond the wildest dreams of many people in the industry. The British miners will know that when the Labour Government were in power they slaughtered the industry, Now that a Conservative Government are in power, £1,000 million has been made available. I have already had intimated to me genuine gratitude at this state of affairs.
There is a feeling that there should be improvements in severance pay. Why should dockers be pampered and miners treated so harshly? I join hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side in pressing my hon. Friend the Minister to use his influence with the National Coal Board to take specific anticipatory measures now, so that we can be in a position to exploit future opportunities. It would be an enormous boost for the industry if the Government gave instructions for Drax B to be a coal-fired power station. That would he an enormous psychological advantage to the industry.
I should like to see the export facilities for handling coal on the East Coast at Immingham improved and expanded. I should like feasibility studies to be put in hand to see where it is possible for new shafts to be sunk to extract coal in those


areas towards the east where the coal could go straight from the pit into barges to go to Western Europe.
What is to me more heartening than the actual amount of hard cash is this extraordinary new attitude towards the creation of wealth in the industry. The senseless self-destruction of strikes and the sterile stoking of long-dead class war have given way to a much more practical realisation that all those who win their livelihoods in the industry stand to gain much more by mutual co-operation. I pay special tribute to the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers for their co-operation with the NCB and the Government. I enter a plea that their representation on the board should be increased. One hopes that future confrontations over levels of pay can be avoided by methods of arbitration being agreed and honoured, and I suspect that this will happen.
I hope that the Bill will be seen as a new deal for miners and that the package will include generous improvements in the scandalously low pensions. These have been outlined, they are long overdue, but they are nevertheless very welcome.
I also hope that the Government will give further consideration to compensation for victims of pneumoconiosis and that they will bring in regulations to control that disease and other bronchial diseases which are such a scourge of the industry. I have been to the Bretby Mining Research Establishment in my constituency and I have seen the work that is being done there. The sooner the results of that work are applied, the better.
I am certain that the miners will respond to this magnificent gesture and that they will increase their productivity directly by reducing absenteeism—

Mr. Skinner: What about absenteeism here?

Mr. Stewart-Smith: They will reduce it and they can reduce it in the industry —it is something they can do directly. I am sure that they will co-operate in running the most modern machinery to its optimum with the greatest efficiency. Now, quite literally, the future of the industry is in the hands of the miners

and they are no longer crushed by the burden of inherited debt.
I end by making a final plea. To guide those of us in the House who are interested in energy and mining problems, will the Government—if not in a White Paper, in an annual statement—give us an indication of their thinking and future plans to ensure the provision of sufficient energy to British industry?

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I will first take up two or three points which have been raised in the debate, starting with the hon. Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith). He spoke about absenteeism in the mining industry. From a purely technical point of view there has been a fairly substantial reduction in absenteeism both before the strike and since. In the year preceding the strike the absenteeism rate went down from about 17½ per cent. to 16 per cent. In the months following the strike the absenteeism rate fell once again.

Mr. Skeet: It is now roughly 17 per cent.

Mr. Skinner: I do not want to argue the toss with the hon. Gentleman. He gets it wrong on most occasions. The absenteeism figures in the last two weeks for which figures are available show a reduction from about 16 per cent. to 15 per cent., roughly speaking. We must also take into account that at this time last year an overtime ban was in operation which restricted the earnings of the men at the pit. One could argue from a purely economic point of view that they were more likely to be at work this time last year than now.
Is it not time for Members of Parliament of all people to raise the question of absenteeism? No Liberal Member is present. Where are the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cyril Smith), and the newly elected pavement-mender, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Tope) and the rest? It is high time we stopped talking about absenteeism in relation to miners. We do not talk about it in relation to dockers, bankers, doctors, junior executives or anyone else. Members of Parliament should keep their traps shut. I will not talk in more specific terms about the hon. Member for Derbyshire. South-East (Mr. Rost), but he is not


here as often as some other people. I will leave it as broad as that. I am sorry, I mean the hon. Member for Belper. I excuse the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East, who spends a considerable amount of time here asking whether the steel works at Stanton are to be closed.
The hon. Member for Belper was anxious to tell us that because I and some of my colleagues—an overwhelming majority of the mining group—decided to vote against entry into the Common Market, we have not been in a position to influence the Government on the Bill. I have never heard anything so ridiculous. One of the disadvantages we face in relation to the Bill is not that we are not going into the Market as we wished but that we are going in. We are concerned that coal should be imported from third countries only because we are going into the Common Market. If a sympathetic Government wanted to stop coal coming from Europe or from third countries nobody could stop them, but because we are to join the Common Market we are now told what a wonderful thing it will be that we are not able to take such a course. Therefore, the Common Market will not help us in that respect.
Mr. Derek Ezra, Chairman of the Coal Board, went on record earlier in the year as saying that 7 million tons of coal would be sold to the Common Market, but we have recently questioned him about this matter and he has not had a great deal to say about it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Fitch) said that members of the national executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers would be serving on the committees of the European Coal and Steel Community. I would point out to my hon. Friend that they have been going to those meetings as observers ever since 1954. They will now have a practical rôle to play. The distinction which has to be drawn is that whereas on the one hand Gormley and Daly, or their two substitutes, will be able to play a role in Europe since they will have something to say and will take part in decisions, the Labour Party is in a very different position in deciding not to send people to take part in the European Parliament. This is obvious to anybody who examines the situation. The European Assembly will have no power, but Gormley and Daly will become in-

volved in some of the real decision-making, and that is a quite different matter.
I should like to examine why we have this Bill before us in its present form. Many of my colleagues, and even some people in the union, have welcomed the Bill in toto and have given the impression that it was almost a present from Santa Claus in 1972. But it has not been brought before the House as a co-operative effort on the part of the Government, the Coal Board and the NUM. The Bill has been brought to the House mainly because of what happened last winter.
I have looked at the historical background, and to see the matter in true perspective, it is necessary to go back to the period before the General Election. In 1965 there was a write-off of £437 million, but by 1970 it became apparent to many people that there was a necessity for a further write-off. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever), who was then the Minister in charge of the coal industry, made it quite clear that if a Labour Government were returned at the 1970 election there would be an immediate write-off. Lawrence Daly also said at several union conferences that a Labour victory in the 1970 election would have led to a subsequent write-off, and certain other things were promised too. But Labour's victory did not take place, and we had to have a strike to settle the matter.
If the Tory Government, having examined the situation—and presumably they had examined the prospects ever since they were elected on 18th June 1970—had wanted to treat the National Coal Board and the union on a completely non-political basis, they could have done so in the provisions of the 1971 Coal Industry Bill. But they did not do so. In fact they did the opposite. One can only conclude that they took the view that, despite the fact that a write-off was necessary, they would follow their lame duck policy and send the National Coal Board to the wall like every other lame duck.
The miners did not strike only on the question of wages. They struck because they felt strongly about the general malaise in the industry. Following the strike the Government then came to this House for authority to pay the bill—but they paid the bill only for that


financial year, namely a sum of £100 million. However, the situation necessitated payments over a number of years. The Government decided to spread the payment over succeeding years, and that is why we have this Bill before us today. The Government were pushed into taking action because the NUM made it quite clear that its members were not prepared to tolerate the situation. This is not unlike the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders situation. Initially the Government made it clear that they would not bail out UCS but eventually, as we all know, they bailed it out.
The Bill is being brought before the House to enable the industry to survive. The Government could have taken another role, and certain Conservative Members would have been happy to have seen the Government adopt a different approach. Such an approach would have led the board to put up prices substantially. It would have meant that coal consumption would be even more greatly reduced. It would have resulted in a greater number of pit closures and many miners being thrown out of work. It would have added to the unemployment total, which is still around the 800,000 mark. The Government would not have been the most popular people in the country. Therefore they took the other course, because they did not want to see a similar situation arising in a few years' time.
It will be appreciated that from a purely technical point of view a write-off was necessary. Coal consumption had fallen by 40 million tons since 1965 when the last write-off occurred—a drop of 22 per cent.—and a write-off was bound to take place. In 1965 when the earlier reconstruction took place nobody foresaw that natural gas would replace coal to the extent that it did. It was obvious that any self-respecting Government would have to take a new look at the situation. It must also he remembered that after 1965 interest rates rose substantially. Before 1965 the National Coal Board borrowed money at interest rates ranging from 7 to 10 per cent. This meant that a write-off of £37 million in 1965 became meaningless within five years. The amount of money having to be paid back at the end of the six-year period was such that it was more than it was before

1965. In other words, in six years the whole of the amount written off had gone.
The same is true of depreciation. With an industry which was that much smaller the depreciation costs on the board per ton of coal mined were a great deal higher. In fact they were about 27p. During that period it must be acknowledged that even though we had a Labour Government more than 230 pits were closed. In an industry which has 230 pits fewer, that kind of capital debt cannot be hung round its neck when it is so much smaller. From those purely technical financing points of view any decent Government would have to take account of the situation. It is not a tragedy that the strike had to tell right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Government side to do it. The fact is that it needed a strike to tell the present Government that they had to change the capital reconstruction of the industry.
All I have said hitherto has been concerned with the writing-off of book debts. That is really what it is, apart from some of the financial assistance which has been given in various other ways. However, the write-down is a write-off of book debts. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I are concerned not merely with the write-off of book debts. What worries us is the write-off of human debts. There are literally hundreds and thousands of people who have worked in the industry all their lives, some for more than 50 years, and they will not get a penny piece out of this apart from the increase in their pensions. To some of them it means that when supplementary benefit is taken into account even that addition will be meaningless. Although they have been part and parcel of the industry which has had this large debt written off, the Bill means nothing to them.
That is why I suggest to the Minister that when he discusses the possibility of allowing concessionary coal for all those made redundant after the announcement of the Bill last Monday, he ought also to consider in conjunction with the unions and the National Coal Board the possibility of giving concessionary coal to those made redundant after the 1967 Bill who at present are not getting a cobble of coal although many of them worked in the industry for more than 40 years. That is one of the human debts which we should take into account.
The same argument applies to the three-year related scheme which affected miners who were made redundant in the late 1960s. They have now gone through the three-year scheme and are on supplementary benefit. In my view they should retain this kind of severance pay until they reach 65 or unless they are fortunate enough to get other jobs meanwhile. I hope that we shall consider this point in Committee.
I want now to make two or three brief points about imported coal. We have heard mention of this already but it is necessary to stress that when we pay £70 million or £80 million for imported coal we ought to be considering ways and means of cutting back on coal imports.
On the general question of consumption, the Minister should bear in mind that it is no use asking for a general welcome for his Bill if it means that he will not be able to persuade the Central Electricity Generating Board to acquire new coal-fired stations. It does not matter what happens if the level of consumption does not increase, or if it decreases because the CEGB, our main customer, is not taking more coal. That is a matter of great importance to miners who are concerned for their future.
Then there is the fuel tax. I hope we shall not see any kind of back-door method whereby it is said "We have the Coal Bill through now. Everyone is happy. Presumably all the coal miners are pleased. Now we shall attempt to reduce the fuel tax on oil". If that occurs most of the advantages will have been lost.
Finally the Minister talked about pit closures. Whether he was trying to appease his hon. Friends behind him I am not sure. With a Bill of this kind, naturally he could not afford to make it appear that everything was being handed out on a plate. But the hon. Gentleman seemed to inject into his speech a note of "If you are not careful, we shall be shutting some pits". In other words he was implying that if the proposals which came from the NUM and the National Coal Board did not suit him and the Prime Minister, especially the Prime Minister—he wants to get his own back one day, though I do not think he will succeed now—that would be just too bad for the coal industry. If that

is the Minister's attitude, he should say so.
I can assure the Government that if there is any attempt to do what I described on Monday as rolling back the carpet, the miners know the way to victory. They know where the path is and where it leads. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Government side should be careful about making threatening remarks. Other people can threaten too. That is why we have all the cooperation that we have now between the NUM and the National Coal Board. Yes, there is co-operation, but it is at a different level. It is not like the cooperation that we had between 1947 and 1972, certainly in the later years. It is co-operation. But it is different co-operation.
The NUM executive, its officials and branch officials at local level and the whole membership are not in the driver's seat. They are in a different seat now. They are able to say "On this sort of co-operative level we are equal to you. If you are not prepared to accede to the relatively minor requests that we make from time to time in respect of wages, we shall demonstrate in the only way possible. In that way we shall manage to get these requests agreed to not only by the National Coal Board but by any future Government."

6.48 p.m.

Mr. Adam Butler: This debate began with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) speaking in an atmosphere of cosiness, sweetness and light. It came as no surprise to me when the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) brought in an aura of depression—

Mr. Skinner: I did not say that.

Mr. Butler: I say that.

Mr. Skinner: I am not depressed.

Mr. Butler: The hon. Gentleman's speech was depressing because of the total disregard for financial responsibility from within the industry that he appeared to attribute to it. I also found acute depression in the fact that he looked upon our entry into the Common Market as the source of greater imports. Whatever the hon. Gentleman may say, Mr. Derek Ezra whom I saw last week is confident that our coal industry can take advantage of the Common Market.

Mr. Skinner: Seven million tons?

Mr. Butler: The final depressing feature of the hon. Gentleman's speech was his closing threat—the sting in the tail—

Mr. Skinner: It is not a threat. It is a fact.

Mr. Butler: I believe that the industry is prepared to go forward in a sense of co-operation. If the threats which the hon. Gentleman made in his speech are carried through, that co-operation will evaporate. I only hope that his views are not typical of the industry as a whole.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced his proposals for the Bill, I welcomed them. I did so for strategic reasons but with the proviso that there should be a healthy and viable industry as a result of the proposals. That proviso is one of elastic proportion. It is impossible to be certain that the Government are taking the right steps in the proposed expenditures outlined in the Bill. But I think that they are being thoroughly realistic in accepting the existing situation. My hon. Friend the Minister is also right in his basic approach. With all the uncertainties about the supply and origin of energy fuels over the next decade or more, it would be wrong to allow the rapid rate of rundown in the coal industry which purely financial and economic considerations undoubtedly dictate.
I make no comment about the past, except that I hope that half the lessons have been learned and will be acted upon. There is no possibility that the industry could be put in a condition in which it could generate the cash which is necessary to meet the £475 million for writing off capital debts and the operating deficit of the last two years. That is impossible unless the industry is sold to the Japanese buyers who are believed to be in the market. But if Japan is looking for coal mines, that is a good reason for us to hang on to them.
Despite its inflationary effects, a greater amount of the cost of the wage claim settlement should have been recovered through the price of coal. The board should have raised the price of coal by 10 per cent. There is something salutary about a simple cause-and-effect relationship. As it is, the taxpayer, whether he

uses coal or not, is being asked to foot the bill. The running of a nationalised industry at a loss is in part at least inflationary, and that is the situation before it is agreed to write off the loss. But will the industry ever be viable?

Mr. John Mendelson: The hon. Gentleman is making a propaganda point. It is a simple fact that for the last 15 years, under various Governments, coal and steel have been the base of our export record. It was a sensible policy to hold the prices of coal and steel at a reasonable level so that we could be competitive in the price of our manufactured exports. If the hon. Gentleman overlooks that, he overlooks the whole basis of the calculation.

Mr. Butler: The industry's present financial target is only to break even. A high degree of subsidy is envisaged if it performs according to target. But it would have put a little more realism into the situation if 10 per cent. had been put on the price of coal. That would have equated more or less with the cost of the wage claim of £90 million.
I was asking whether the industry will ever become viable, or whether there will be a sufficient degree of viability, taking into account in the short term the important social costs of maintaining employment in the regions and moderating the contraction, and in the longer period the national interests and strategic advantages of an indigenous source of fuel.
As my hon. Friend the Minister and other hon. Members have said, the industry will undoubtedly be operating in a highly competitive arena. There is no need to point that out to the board or the unions. What is needed in that arena is highly efficient administration and financial management by the board, and by the industry as a whole high production and productivity from labour and machines.
What hope is there of achieving that? The most recent accounts, those for 1971–72, show a disproportionate rise in the costs of colliery operations. I am talking about the non-productive costs—not the cost per ton, but the total costs. When I see that salaries and related expenses and overheads and services have risen in a year by 30 cent., I begin to get worried. Even in the sundry expenses column there is an additional


£2 million. There is £1 million in the bad debt column. I hope that that arose not from the CEGB but from some market which was improperly examined before the coal was sold.
I am not nit-picking, because it is reasonable to raise these points. They do nothing to dispel the worry which so many of us have on this side of the House that it is difficult, if not impossible, to apply the disciplines and attitudes of good financial management within a public enterprise.
I am cheered by the confidence exuded by the chairman of the board and, more practically, by the reports of the trimming of administrative costs now taking place. I find it encouraging to hear the Minister's reference to the new company structure. On the other hand, as I replied to the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), I find it disquieting that the financial targets are still those of breaking even and that the expenditure envisages in the Bill excludes any provision for the expansion of the industry or the sinking of new pits.
Viability also depends on the performance of the men in the industry. Reference has been made to the new record productivity in terms of average output per man shift. That is greatly to be welcomed. But I understand that the board is looking for increases in productivity of about 5 per cent. a year, which is of the order of 2 cwt. to 3 cwt. per man shift. I question whether that is possible against a background of a high degree of mechanisation, which must make such increases more difficult. In some pits the change from piece rate to time rate has reduced productivity, particularly in the making of approach roads for the highly successful retreat mining process.
Productivity will depend largely on the miners. I urge the board and the unions to agree as soon as possible on colliery productivity bonus schemes. I understand that the union is prepared to consider an industry scheme. But there is no incentive in an industry scheme as such. If the type of arrangement which was recommended by Wilberforce is to be effective, it must be introduced on a colliery basis.

Mr. Alexander Wilson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the men do not want incentive schemes on a

colliery basis? If the hon. Gentleman looks at the accident figures when piecework schemes operated, he will see that the accident rate was tremendous. It was only when we reverted on mechanised face lines to a day rate basis that the accident rate decreased. I ask the hon. Gentleman to make some research and find out how much he is prepared to give in the interests of safety.

Mr. Butler: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because I can make it clear that I am in no way suggesting a return to a piece-rate system. But I am convinced, as he must be, that the responsibility of the workers at the face, or anywhere else underground or overground, is such that a bonus scheme of, say, 5 or 10 per cent. on earnings will not be such as to make them work in an unsafe way. The hon. Member knows it better than I do, but I have been down pits in my constituency and I know that they can get another half cut or another cut a shift. That is what would reduce the cost of coal and make the industry more viable.
The productivity of the industry depends on the miners. Indeed the future of the industry depends on the miners and the relationship of the unions with the board. There is obvious and welcome progress in the setting up of point policy consultation. I do not know who is in the driving seat. I know that the union is not. I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Bolsover is displaying absenteeism from the Chamber, because the threat that he gave us about driving seats was totally unnecessary. I believe that joint representation in policy-making will be developed and that it will be of benefit. We are told that the union has accepted the principle that increased wages will come out of increased productivity. What firm assurances, if any, have we had on this subject?
These matters I have been talking about are under the control of the industry, but the assumption of viability in the future depends on external factors as well and on the extent of supply and on the costs of other fuels. Without a subsidy, coal cannot now compete whilst uneconomic pits are in operation. I have been looking at the costs of electricity generation, which is the main use for coal. I have figures supplied by the


Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board. I compared for 1971 the eight latest coal-fired stations with the three latest oil-fired stations and seven Magnox nuclear power stations. The cost per unit of electricity sent out in 1971 from coal-fired stations was 5 per cent. higher than that from oil-fired stations. Indeed, if one takes away the heavy oil tax, the cost was 20 per cent. higher. Costs have changed since then, but they have not changed more greatly in respect of oil than coal. We are assured that the costs of oil will now rise more rapidly. Will they rise sufficiently to close the gap?
The costs of nuclear power generation are even more interesting. I have excluded from the seven Magnox stations Hinckley Point A, which was in only partial operation at the time. Again in 1971, including capital charges and a shorter write-off than for oil-fired or coal-fired stations, the generation costs from nuclear power were equal to those of oil, with its tax burdens, and therefore 5 per cent. less than coal.
This at least is a pointer to the future. While one recognises all the difficulties of deciding between different reactors—a decision which is made more critical and more difficult by the enormous capital cost involved—we must confidently look to and press on towards nuclear power for our main electricity generation in the future.
It is difficult to put a figure on this, but if the capital cost of a nuclear power station is about £250 million to £300 million—and we compare that with the cost of expanding the coal industry, through the opening of new pits which would be required—then at a cost of £20 million for opening a deep pit, with 1 million tons per annum in full production, it can be seen that the cost of a nuclear power station would be about the same as sinking new pits to produce as little as 12 million to 15 million tons of coal per annum. The expenditure I would go for would be towards the nuclear power stations.
I have raised a large number of questions. I have given no firm answers to them. I believe that most hon. Members cannot give such answers, nor indeed can my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry. That is really in the end the justi-

fication for the Government's decision. As I see it the Government are saying "Let us hang on to what we know we have and can control. The imponderables are too many for us to be able to draw up an energy policy." My hon. Friend has confirmed this, because he will rot produce the White Paper which we all want. The Government are saying that the imponderables are too many for them to draw up an energy policy for the next two decades and that it is not possible to state categorically what size the coal industry should be in the 1980s. They are saying "We recognise, however, that the prospects for an energy crisis in the 1980s are real, and for this reason the rate of contraction of the coal industry must not be allowed to accelerate as it otherwise would".
In my view the proposals in the Bill are not, in the words of the hon. Member for Chesterfield, "feather-bedding" the industry. I believe that they are just sufficient to allow a period for decision—the decision by the coal industry as a whole, whether it is prepared and able to put itself in a position where it can compete with other sources of fuel after discounting the national interest factor. The proposals also allow time for the Government to assess the energy picture and for at least a partial clarification of the development of the world energy scene to emerge. I welcome the Government's judgment in this matter and I ask the industry to respond to what is essentially an act of faith.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Peter Hardy: The hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Adam Butler) will forgive me if I do not follow some of his points immediately, I also received a letter from the Central Electricity Generating Board and at least the figures for nuclear and coal-fired stations coincide.
I believe that the Bill should be given a modest welcome, since it will allow Britain to retain a substantial coal industry during the next few years. I hope that the Minister, and his successors during the 1970s, will refrain from taking steps which will allow the National Coal Board rapidly to expand production, as I believe, like many of my colleagues, that expansion will become necessary. The Government are fortunate in that they can act in time. Some countries


have lost that capacity. In Western Europe the oil strategy has withered the coal industry. Only West Germany has any substantial mining ability in the European Economic Community, and it provides two-thirds or more of the Community's coal. The Community relies excessively on imported fuels, whether oil or coal.
We have had arguments about whether we should enter the Common Market. One of the aspects which worries me about British entry is that we are compelled to buy dear food and turn away from our traditional and cheaper suppliers. There is no guarantee either that the 20 million to 25 million tons of coal imports which the present Common Market uses will be taken from the British coalfields in future.
I think that the countries of the Community will prefer to take the coal from the State subsidised coalmines of Eastern Europe rather than from the most efficient deep-mined coal industry in the world, namely, that run by the National Coal Board. If we have to purchase their dear food, however, it is reasonable for the Government to begin to insist that Europe should take an increasing share of the reasonably priced coal which the National Coal Board produces. But if we arc to persist with 120 million or 130 million tons of production, we may not have the ability to export in five or 10 years' time.
The Minister gave a figure of 400 million tons of coal equivalent as the energy requirement for Britain in 1980, and it may well be that the figure in 1985 will be 500 million tons of coal equivalent, even allowing for a comparatively modest rate of growth in energy demand. If coal's share of that 500 million tons of coal equivalent is only 25 per cent., that will be equal to the sum total of the extractive capacity which the present Minister seems to suggest as reasonable. But if coal's share shrinks to only one-third, we shall need for our own requirements not 130 million tons but about 160 million or even 170 million tons, without any account being taken of either decisions or, indeed, ability to export.
Obviously there are complaints from the Conservative Party about the cost of the Bill, but one thing that has not been said from the benches opposite is that, although Conservative Members are

uneasy about the subsidy to the National Coal Board—

Mr. David Crouch: No.

Mr. Hardy: Many of them have already expressed that sort of view. Perhaps the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) is an exception. [Interruption.] I will say merely that some hon. Members opposite may well be anxious about the cost of the subsidy. However, not one of them has so far mentioned that the amounts involved in subsidy for this part of the public sector are dwarfed by the profits which the Conservative Party is happily allowing to accrue to foreign investors from their over-rapid development of North Sea oil.
The North Sea oil developments have been described in recent days as a bonanza for Britain, as Britain's last chance for economic greatness. We ought not to under-value the immense importance of our offshore oil, but if we are to make the wisest use of that oil we ought not to start rapidly extracting it at a time when world oil prices are much lower than they are likely to be before very long. In these circumstances a more cautious approach to the extraction of North Sea oil and a greater reliance on the National Coal Board would be economically wise. A policy of careful husbandry would be more appropriate than the Gaderene rush that we have seen in recent months.
Our lack of information and the lack of public debate about a fuel policy is regrettable. We have learned much from the American experience, and this is of direct relevance for us.

Mr. Skeet: The situation there is very different.

Mr. Hardy: The hon. Gentleman says that, but I think he will agree that American self-sufficiency has now ended and that 11 billion barrels a day or thereabouts before 1990 will be required from the oilfields which supply Western Europe, and the increased competition there will inevitably mean a rapid increase in the price of oil which will affect not only the United States but Western Europe and Japan as well.

Mr. Skeet: The hon. Gentleman is overlooking the fact that the United Kingdom's situation is entirely different from that of the United States, because


from the Cape to the North Sea there are 55 trillion cubic feet of gas, and there can be ample supplies of oil to the extent that, in the early 1980s, there will probably be 3 million barrels a day available to the United Kingdom.

Mr. Hardy: The hon. Gentlman may say that our situation is different from that in America, but it is worth remembering that 10 or 15 years ago American experts would have taken the same view and talked about their immense reserves of gas and oil in the United States, but now they are coming up against the critical situation of shortage and it could well be—one can only guess—that America's experience during the past 15 years will be reflected and reproduced in the experience which Britain will encounter during a similar period.
The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) mentioned gas. We ought to start thinking about gas supplies a good deal more carefully than we have done so far. At present customers are beguiled by the seagulls in the summer sun which they see in television advertisements. Sales of gas have been enormous. It is reckoned a success story for skilled advertising people. But if gas is used at the increasing rate currently experienced for power generation and for heavy industrial purposes, it is possible that the customer now installing new domestic equipment in response to the advertisements will find that the gas reserves have diminished before that equipment has worn out. This is further evidence of the need for careful and thorough public debate about the development of a fuel policy.
The need for a fuel policy is shown most clearly in relation to nuclear power. Hopes were high in 1967 when Magnox appeared to be the first of what would be a massively successful line of nuclear power generators. Pits closed by the score. Then corrosion was found, and we now know that Magnox will never again run at full capacity. Then we had the AGR stations. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) referred to Dungeness B, a serious disaster, albeit a quiet one, which resulted in the AGR stage of nuclear power development being vastly more expensive than was expected, just as Magnox was

vastly less productive than was planned. Thus, after years of vast expenditure, nuclear power has been a considerable disappointment and had a greater failure of performance than was ever dreamed of.
When we now find, after all that expenditure, that the Central Electricity Generating Board's figures show that nuclear and modern coal-fired stations provided since 1962 supply electricity at exactly the same cost, we have good cause to worry, since considerable expenditure—much greater for nuclear power than for coal—was incurred before the year 1962 and did not enter into the calculations, just as—the hon. Member for Bosworth referred to this—the performance of the Hinckley Point A station was excluded from the individual cost ranges provided by the CEGB.
Since these are CEGB figures, and the CEGB is not known to be an organisation particularly in love with coal, we have profound reason to take a more suspicious look at the future of nuclear power in Britain.
There is another aspect of the matter which should be considered. The problem of nuclear waste was referred to in the Government's publication "Nuisance or Nemesis". It is a serious problem. At present we are putting this waste into stout stainless steel tanks covered with concrete, and we hope for the best. As we provide for more and more nuclear generation, so there will be more and more of these stout tanks accumulated. But some of the substances produced have an enormously long life. I am no scientist. but a scientist tells me that plutonium has a half-life—that is, a life in which it is capable of genocidal destruction—of 25,000 years.
If we are to accumulate substances like that and put them into these stout and sturdy tanks, we must remember at the same time that those tanks will have to stay around a great deal longer than we shall, and man's history over the last 24,000 or 25,000 years does not give great cause for confidence in a future stability during which more of these dangerous radioactive wastes will have to be dealt with.
For that reason I think it important for mankind to avoid excessive reliance


on nuclear generation. One certain means of insuring against that is by providing for a vigorous and continuingly capable coal industry. I believe that the present Bill will allow that defence to be built up, and I believe that it will contribute to improving morale in the mining industry.
Hon. Members have referred to the superb technological record of the National Coal Board. The work has changed tremendously, as those hon. Members who worked in the industry know well. It is very different from the days when my father was a collier, just before nationalisation. The industry is different from the days when my grandfather worked in it. When I was a small boy and went to see him after he had been seriously injured in the pit, I recall his saying that coal should be wrapped up in silver paper and sold by ounces. Only a few years ago we thought that that scale of production might be possible—that we would be producing it in tiny quantities for specialist purposes. But the fact is that the world will he short of fuel, and coal will be needed in considerable quantities.
If we are to produce that coal, morale is important. I believe that Mr. Ezra and the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers are to be commended, in 1972, after bitter experience, for embarking upon a policy which will see the technological record equalled by the establishment of superb industrial relations which could contribute so much to the economic and social well-being of the mining areas.
We must realise that since we need a lot of coal we shall need men to mine it. Those men will have to be recruited in future not because there is nothing else for them to do, but because there are rewards and opportunities which induce them to work in the pits. This is absolutely vital. Unless this is accented the Bill will not be as successful as it should be. For this reason the further provision of concessionary coal, better sickness arrangements and the improved pension scheme to which my hon. Friends have referred are extremely important. If we accept these things, it is clear that areas like mine, which have served the country so successfully in the past, though not always with sufficiently fair and adequate

rewards, will be able to look to a happier future in which the rewards and returns will be a good deal better than in the past. As the Bill takes us just a little way along that happier road, I hope that hon. Gentleman on the Government side will not be so blind as to oppose it and that it will receive its Second Reading.

7.22 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I do not know whether 1 shall or shall not disappoint the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy); but before coming to the part of the Bill to which he referred I want to mention other elements.
The Bill contains three distinct elements, of which the motives and the justifications are distinct and which fall to be judged upon different grounds. They are, respectively, the reorganisation of the capital structure of the industry, the provision for the payments which are broadly designated as social and, thirdly, the payments which are designed to make it possible, while breaking even after subsidy, to extract more coal than could otherwise be disposed of. I will take them in that order, and briefly, because I know that many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.
First, the capital reconstruction. This seems to me wholly sensible and desirable. After all, the only objective reality is the working surplus, if any—or the working deficit—which the Coal Board makes year by year. This can be allocated as we please; but it is entirely a matter of accountancy—a movement or rearrangement of mirrors—whether we regard it as a deficit or surplus on a larger capital or on a smaller capital.
Even the new capital structure will still be arbitrary in the same sense as the old capital structure was arbitrary. Still, it is not so far from reality; it is less purely historical; and therefore it should be welcomed. Of course, nobody should make the crude mistake of supposing that this write-off in any sense represents public expenditure. It is merely an accounting rearrangement which has regard to what has happened in the past and has no economic significance whatsoever for the present or the future. To that extent I welcome the rationalisation which this Bill brings about.
Secondly, there are the social provisions. There could be differences of opinion upon details; but I should think that in principle there could be no quarrel with the intention behind those provisions. After all, any large undertaking—and one far less in size than the National Coal Board—if facing the prospects of reorganisation and contraction which, on any assumption, the National Coal Board is facing, would, if it were a good and wise employer, seek to improve pension and redundancy arrangements and would, if it could, seek to make some of the additional and fringe payments which will alleviate the impact and the consequences of closures. So, broadly speaking, the second element in the Bill seems to me entirely acceptable and, indeed, admirable.
I am afraid that my judgment on the third part is the reverse. The third part of the Bill purports, on economic grounds, to provide a subsidy which will retain in production pits which otherwise would be uneconomic and working at a loss, a loss of which the size is approximately measured by the size of the subsidy.
The economic ground which is urged for doing this is that by and by the price structure of the sources of energy will be different from what it is today, and will be more favourable to coal and less favourable to its competitors. Therefore, the argument runs, it is a good and sensible investment, as it were, to pay these sums now to cover present losses in order to be able to produce profitably when the price structure of the sources of fuel has altered.

Mr. Eadie: No.

Mr. Powell: I agree with the hon. Gentleman if his negative means that that is not the true justification. I will come to the true justification presently. But I am sure he will not disagree that the argument which I have just paraphrased was put forward by not only my hon. Friend but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and has been widely canvassed in this context. I think we ought to look at it.
One thing that is morally certain about any expectations which we form about the demand for, and the supply of, the sources of energy in future is that shall be wildly and hopelessly wrong. I

recall—I will cite no more examples than these—the expectations in the early 1950s—the days of the Ridley Committee and the rest—that all the coal that could possibly be dug, however expensive, could be consumed. I think that even 300 million tons a year for 20 years ahead was mentioned as a prospective requirement. All the wisest people had got down to their sums and worked this out. Well, that passed. It more or less went out, if I remember rightly, with "nutty slack" in about 1955 or 1956.
Then, in the early 1960s, one of the undisputed orthodoxies of future planning for the provision of energy was that the gas industry was a goner: the euthanasia of the gas industry was one of the centrepieces of the fuel element in the National Plan—admittedly out of date before it was published—as late as 1965. Yet now we are arguing about how many trillions of barrels-worth are to be pushed through the gas industry, energy provided in the form of gas from a source which was barely suspected—certainly not fully recognised—only five or seven years ago.
Now, we are no wiser than those who went before us. True, we know now what they did not know then; but we know no more about the future than they knew.

Mr. Eadie: Do I take it that in essence the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the fact that there is likely to be a world energy shortage is nothing but propaganda?

Mr. Powell: No. If the hon. Gentleman will be patient he will find that I shall come to a different conclusion from that.
Whatever changes are to come about in the future pattern of energy demand and provision will be reflected in price. That is accepted on all hands. So if it be true that the relative demand for coal is to rise, that will in due course reflect itself, like the rest of the unforeseeable future, in continuing changes in the pattern of prices.
The proposition of those who rely upon forecast in a field in which a fore cast has never been right, has never been right, has never been approximately right—

Mr. Eadie: The right hon. Gentleman is saying that it is propaganda.

Mr. Powell: I ask the hon. Gentleman please to be patient with me for a moment: I shall not detain the House for long. Those who say that they are banking upon this forecast working out are assuming—let me put it in precise terms for illustration—that they know, or have formed an estimate, what the price of coal will be, relative to other sources of energy, at some particular future date.
Even if that were to be so—and all probability is against their being anywhere near right—it would be necessary to discount that assumed future price backwards to the present. I do not know what rate of interest one ought to use for discounting the profit to be made in 1978, 1980 or the early 1980s. Eight per cent. per annum? I dare say we should hardly think ourselves realistic if we chose a lower figure than that. Yet one would have to look forward to the profits of Midas in the 1980s for it to be economic, at that rate of interest, and upon those prospects, and at that distance of time, to invest money now in the business of making a loss during the intervening years. On the economic, accounting and financial arguments which are advanced, no investor in his right mind would look at such a proposition. He would not put a penny into it.
Of course—and here is where 1 rejoin the hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie)—the economic argument is merely a facade. My hon. Friend really recognised it as such, because he knew that his White Paper, whenever he could get it out, would carry no more assurance than the White Paper which he very ingenuously said would have been too risky to produce at any time in the last two years. The real reason concealed behind that facade is social—the desire to avoid the dislocation, the hardship, the loss involved in a rapid reduction of the coal industry to whatever may be the size at which its output competes in price with rival sources of energy.
I want to face that challenge head on. This subsidy, this £125 million a year, means something more than the mere expenditure of public money; and it is right that the House should face the reality of which that figure is a symbol. It represents the deliberate waste of £125 million—indeed, much more than £125 million—worth of human effort. I say

"much more" because the loss is measured not just by the amount of the subsidy: it is measured by the absence of profit above the break-even point, and also by the forgoing of whatever these assets and resources could have created in alternative applications. When we say that the Bill is enacting that for three years at least £125 million worth of human effort a year shall deliberately be wasted, that is a gross understatement: the true waste will be much greater.
I pose to myself the human question in these terms; for the issue is not one of humanity or inhumanity, nor is it one of concern or unconcern. The question is how best to fulfil the requirements of humanity and the requirements of concern, and I say—

Mr. Boardman: I recognise the doubt which my right hon. Friend casts upon the accuracy of forecasts—a doubt that is widely shared—but is he not falling into his own trap in forecasting that up to 1980, or even beyond, there will be an adequacy of sources of energy within this country and we can therefore safely go ahead without ensuring a continuation of supplies? Forecasts can go both ways.

Mr. Powell: I am doing no such thing. I am saying that one has to behave like any other person who is risking his money. He would look at the present and foreseeable pattern of prices and take his decision on that. Nobody seriously thinks that anyone who was risking his own money would invest it in continuing to make a loss on the marginal pits of this country.
I return to the dilemma which faces the House: it is how the demands of humanity and concern are best met. The object is shared; we differ only about the methods. It is my belief that to use public money and the power of the State deliberately to continue the employment of considerable numbers of men in operations which in themselves, as well as indirectly, are a gross waste of their effort and of the resources used, is not the best way to limit or soften the inevitable blows of economic change, whatever economic change is going to be.
On the contrary, I say that if we defy the economic forces, by using subsidy and State power to do so, then, when these eventually have to be faced—when,


in the event, we have to capitulate, as the National Coal Board has had to capitulate year by year to the economic facts—the impact will be more sudden and more cruel than it would have been if we had been ready to face those facts from the outset.
I therefore put my money, almost literally—

Mr. William Ross: The right hon. Gentleman told us not to gamble.

Mr. Powell: This that I put my money on is not a gamble. I put my money, and I am prepared to put my vote, upon spending money in order not only to lighten the direct impact of economic change, as element two of the Bill does, but into whatever it may be which will facilitate and speed up the transfer of labour and effort from the marginal elements of the mining industry to other applications.
My last word is to agree, and to agree heartily, with the last words of the hon. Member for Rother Valley. He said—and I am sure he is right, and I rejoice that he is right—that in future we shall not get men into mining because it is the only thing for them to do. He said, and he was right, that we shall have to bid for men in competition with the other jobs that they can do. Let us spend money, if we wish to do so, in making those other jobs more readily available and the change to them easier to make. Let us do that, and we shall both be facing economic reality, instead of turning our backs on it, and also performing our duty, which is that of humanity and concern for those whom we represent.

7.39 p.m.

Mr. Albert Roberts: I agree with the analysis of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), except on one point. He referred to the prophecies of the early 1950s and 1960s about the future of the coal industry. One thing that must be borne in mind is that with oil and gas the tap can be turned on or off. With coal, once the industry is run down it is very difficult to get it back on its feet.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) talked about Santa Claus and referred to King Coal

and his abdication. To me it is not a question of appearing in the guise of Santa Claus when dealing with the Bill. It is a question of facing realities.
About 16 years and seven months have passed since we debated a similar Bill concerning £1,000 million. I have been a Member of the House for 21 years. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd) has been present in the Chamber this afternoon. He was a Minister for Fuel and Power at one time. Digressing a little, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) is not present, owing to indisposition, because he always plays a lively part in coal industry debates. I well remember his pamphlet "Ten Steps to Power". Through the years we have had all these prophecies. I well remember scientists saying that we should have the last conventional power station in 1965. I remember the talk about nuclear energy and what would happen. Generally, the public seem to be in favour of running down the coal industry.
Let us return to the debate which took place 16 years and seven months ago, when the then Minister, Mr. Aubrey Jones, said:
I suppose that if one were to conduct a Gallup Poll of public opinion on the coal industry one would find that, according to most people, the coal industry is one on which we are now very dependent but in a few years' time—well, the atomic age will be near and then coal can be despatched to the limbo of forgotten things."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1956; Vol. 552, c. 1424.]
The Daily Mail has said:
Why spend all this money on the coal industry. We must continue to see that the atomic energy programme is the one on which more money should be spent. Let us forget about the coal industry.
The hon. and learned Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) asked the Secretary of State whether the reason for the Bill was commercial or social. But we are facing realities, and it is no use pretending that we are benevolent. We are facing a fact of life, and that is that something has to be done. In the words of the late Nye Bevan, we are gambling with our future on oil and gas to a certain extent, and this island is floating on the indigenous fuel, coal.
Over the years the coal industry has to some extent been denigrated by some of


the pundits writing in the national Press. But now is the day of reckoning. We have to appreciate what coal is. I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield referred to King Coal. It was a forcible abdication. We are now inviting him to be King once more.
When speaking of coal production and what it is all about, we must bear in mind that in 1955 we had 704,000 workpeople in the mining industry. Today we have 208.000 in the industry. In 1955 the output per manshift was 1·23 tons. It has been said today that the record stands at nearly 5 tons per manshift, which is a remarkable thing even when one bears in mind the capital which has gone into the industry. It compares more than favourably with other industries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is always hurt when reference is made to absenteeism. He has a great respect for miners. But let us be fair. When all is said and done, we all regret the lamentable strike of last February. Nevertheless, since 1926—I was involved in the 1926 strike—no other industry has been more stable in applying common sense than the coal industry. To some extent there has always been a very reasonable understanding between those in the industry and the National Coal Board.
When the pits were nationalised in 1946 we thought that all our troubles would be gone. I have had many years experience in the mines under private ownership. The mine workers gained a tremendous amount under nationalisation, but even on that there have been misunderstandings.
I want to see the industry progress as it should progress. I do not want this afternoon to say, "We are giving the industry another chance by giving it this money. It must find its own level", and so on. Apart from being economic, it is a reality.
The question of energy is very important. Let us take Japan as an example. Japan's energy problem is almost insoluble. In a speech made in America by the Chairman of the National Coal Board, it was said that within the next decade Japan's annual energy consumption will be equivalent to 800 million tons of coal.
We should also bear in mind that if the demand for energy in a country such as Japan increases at that rate, the increase in Western Europe will be similar. One thing we have not considered is that some countries today are just starting to go through an industrial revolution. The emerging countries will have something to say about this. They will need energy, and they will make the demands. So is it not as well, whatever the cost may be, that we keep our industry lively, quite apart from its being viable? When speaking about economic pits or uneconomic pits, we should remember that in a period of two years, or even less, an uneconomic pit can be made very economic. It all depends on what the industry is prepared to pay.
There should be cheap energy, but not at the expense of cheap miners. The price of energy will be stablised at a reasonable level. This can be brought about by full co-operation and by understanding between the various other energy-producing industries. In every coal industry debate which I have heard during my 21 years as a Member of the House, we have always talked about a concerted energy policy. But even now I am not sure whether we shall get it. To where are we heading? There must be some understanding.
The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West mentioned some of the energy-producing industries. It is true that the gas industry was moribund 10 or 12 years ago. It was in the same condition in the United States. But now the demand for energy has brought it into our economic calculations. All these industries are playing their part. What I want to see is a balanced policy, because whatever we say here today, by tomorrow there will be less oil, natural gas and coal. All of those industries are contracting industries. Therefore, it is essential to have a balanced industry as far as possible.
The 1967 White Paper based its policy on cheap oil, competitive supplies of oil and cheap nuclear energy. But we have realised now, particularly with our entry of the Common Market, that what we need is co-operation. Despite what some of my hon. Friends think, this must come. Nuclear energy will be viable at some time. I would not prophesy when—it may be 30 or 40 years ahead. Millions of pounds have been poured into that


industry and we have had no decent return from goading it on. There were prophecies in the 1950s and 1960s that it would soon have parity with coal, but they have all proved wrong.
But although nuclear energy may be viable within the next 20 or 30 years, we must never neglect coal. It is no good just making forecasts. I realise as much as anyone the importance of this industry. The level of the debate today is almost comparable with what was said in the 1950s and 1960s. If we keep our sights on this industry, it will be rewarding for the country and worth the money that is being poured into it. Nuclear energy is very expensive and if we are to achieve anything, the Western Powers must co-operate.
I am pleased that we are having this debate. One could spend a long time eulogising this industry and what it has meant to the country. Far too many who have been ready to denigrate it are now realising that mistakes have been made.
What about recruitment? It is all very well to assume that young boys will just walk into the industry, but, in Barnsley for instance, not one colliery is working, and recruitment ground has been lost. This applies to other areas in my constituency. I should like the Coal Board to have a scheme for a bonus which could be paid to these young men when they reach 21, 22 or 23. Inducements are given to young boys in other industries. Mining is a precarious industry which needs intelligent young men, and they must have some inducement. When they got this bonus, they would have been trained in mechanisation and in handling machines at the coal face. We can mechanise as much as we like, but without young blood the industry cannot prosper. I hope that these points will be borne in mind.
I do not accept what the Secretary of State said. At present, 75 or more ships go around the Cape every day and there are coaling ships lurking in those waters. For our security, it is essential to keep this industry in a fit condition, so that it can meet a large percentage of our energy demands.
We should also remember how demands are made upon us for Middle East oil. If we can show them that we can stand up in the negotiations, if we can

conserve our North Sea oil and gas as far as possible, if we could have a balanced programme of energy, I am convinced that the coal industry will have the confidence it requires, the miners will be ready to give a return, and the country will reap the advantage.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. Albert Roberts) always speaks a great deal of sound common sense. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow everything he said, although his last remarks tempted me to do so.
This Bill, to which I give a welcome, although a slightly qualified one, raises more problems than it solves. This was illustrated by the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), who posed the central dilemma—how does the State use its resources to discharge its responsibilities? Is the best way to use £125 million a year to keep the coal industry in being, or is that money better spent providing different opportunities, encouraging new industry to these areas, often deprived, and where people would be most affected?
I thought that my right hon. Friend posed the right question, but I disagreed with his conclusions for many reasons, some of which were touched on by the hon. Member for Normanton. I see the Bill as recognising the place of a great industry and its problems and the social responsibilities which fall upon any Government, whatever their political complexion, when faced with a crisis in a nationalised industry.
The main justification for this measure is a strategic one. The hon. Member for Normanton spoke a great deal of sense here. If one thinks of the world demand for energy and realises that the forecasts—I hate to use the word "forecast" after what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said—are that, by the end of this century, the State of California alone will be using as much energy as the whole United States uses now, one sees that we cannot lightly sacrifice an indigenous fuel.
I can be critical of the way in which this Bill has been produced, and the events of the last year. We are, for example, paying too high a price because of the mishandling of the miners' strike. Hon.


Members on both sides know that I was consistently critical of the way in which my right hon. and hon. Friends handled that strike. I am also critical because I do not believe that this is an adequate and complete substitute for a proper fuel policy. This does not mean that one has to produce a national plan and particularise to the last degree, but we should try to anticipate a little more than we have done.
To me, the besetting sin of this country, not only in this field but in many others, is that we tend to react and not to anticipate. Always, we make ourselves prisoners of certain circumstances that other people have created. We should do a little intelligent anticipation when thinking of the fuel and energy needs of this country in the next two or three decades.
Looking at the Bill, perhaps the most important issue it raises is the relationship of the Government to nationalised industries and the degree of answerability which the Government have in this House for those industries. We are here, by any standards, expending a vast sum of money. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) touched on this point earlier when he spoke of the degree of mechanisation in the pits and the sophistication which he hoped the National Coal Board would continue to bring into its operations. But how answerable would my right hon. Friend be for what the National Coal Board is doing here?
I do not wish to repeat a speech which I made about two years ago in this Chamber, but I should like to refer to an issue that I raised then and which is illustrative of this problem. Two years ago I raised the question of the double-ended pick for mechanical coal cutters. I was ridiculed for doing so. I am glad that the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) is to reply for the Opposition because he knows more about this issue than I do. Here we had an invention, a development, which, in the opinion of many experts of great eminence, could have brought great benefit to this industry. For a whole series of reasons—the hon. Gentleman knows them better than I—this invention was never taken up by the Coal Board. I think he will agree that a satisfactory reason for the Coal Board not using it was never given. I believe he tried for several years to get a satis-

factory trial or an explanation of the refusal by the Coal Board to hold such a trial. Other hon. Members on both sides of the House tried. We were all fobbed off by Ministers in both Governments. They said it was a problem for the Coal Board. Very well, it was a problem for the Coal Board; but the invention was being used successfully in similar conditions in other countries. Why was it not being properly tried here? The hon. Member for Ince did not succeed in his endeavours, and when I took the matter up I did not succeed in mine.

Mr. Michael McGuire: To get the record straight, I am fully aware what the hon. Gentleman is talking about, but I never personally took this matter to a Minister to try to obtain satisfaction for the man who invented the double-ended pick.

Mr. Cormack: I am sorry if I misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman's activities. He certainly took a great interest in this invention and he took it up at a high level. I raised it in the House and the Minister replied saying that he could do nothing about it. However, I do not want to expand on this issue. It is nevertheless illustrative of the problem of the answerability of the Government for the activities of this industry, an industry which is taking up vast sums of public money, quite rightly, an industry of great strategic, social and historical importance. But it is a nationalised industry.
Nobody in this House would suggest that it should be denationalised.

Mr. Powell: Yes, I would.

Mr. Cormack: I am sorry. I defer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. Very few Members would say that the industry should be denationalised. But, accepting that it is nationalised, my constituents are constantly amazed when I tell them that nationalised industries are not answerable for their activities to this House. I hope my right hon. Friend will give some thought to this point during the recess and that when the Bill is debated in Committee it might be possible to produce suggested solutions to this continuing problem.
For the moment I welcome the Bill because I feel that there is now a chance


that the coal industry will cease to be a political football, which it has been during the last year or so. I very much hope that the National Union of Mineworkers will respond to what I believe is a realistic and proper gesture on the part of the Government. I hope also that there will be no more pushing of extortionate unrealistic wage claims, which can only bring confusion and danger to the industry—an industry which everyone who has spoken in this debate has recognised as being important and crucial to this country.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. Alexander Wilson: May I for a moment follow the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack). I could give an answer to his plea for a response from the National Union of Mineworkers. I was a miner not so long ago, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the miners have never been found wanting when pleas have been made to them if in turn they have been given fair treatment.
I hope that in Committee the Minister will spell out exactly what the Bill will mean to the people engaged in the industry. Only by the continued co-operation, which has been so magnificent, by the National Union of Mineworkers, the National Coal Board and everybody connected with the industry can the productivity figures be boosted so that we can look forward to coal having a bigger share in the energy market.
I was delighted to hear the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) mention the human problem. If I interpreted his remarks correctly, he would not mind seeing uneconomic pits closed and the miners put to more remunerative work. I agree wholeheartedly with the right hon. Gentleman, but—and it is a very big "but"—we have had this argument for years and years from successive Governments, from innumerable politicians and from trade unionists. To anybody who has lived and worked most of his life in a mining village this is mere pie in the sky. In fact, pits have been closed and huge areas have become derelict with no appreciable difference in the employment prospects of the people in those areas. Therefore, while I agree with the views expressed

by the right hon. Gentleman, I must emphasise that miners and their families can no longer accept vague promises, a multitude of platitudes, before the closure of the pits. We want alterative industries before the pits are closed.
This Bill to a certain extent seems unreal to me. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) and other speakers have mentioned the Christmas spirit contained in the Bill and it has been suggested that the debate should follow those lines. I may be a little cynical, but I think that if the Bill is considered in the context of the present season, it is as though the ugly sisters were showering gifts on poor little Cinderella. I hope that the House will never cease to enjoy the acrobatics of some Conservative Members. They are becoming a regular feature of several major reconstructions of our basic industries. Every hon. Member knows where the somersaults have taken place, and most of us know why.
The last people in the House who should be surprised at the change of policy on the coal mining industry is the miners' group. Over the past decade every member of the group has advocated the same policy of self-sufficiency and underwriting as the Government are now being forced to undertake. They are being forced to take cognisance of the dangerous situation developing not only in Britain but all over the world which makes the Bill necessary.
Those of us who are ex-miners—I almost said "non-academics", but I content myself with saying that—have been continually telling successive Governments that their estimates for energy requirements were based on an unsound philosophy, and that they had set their eyes on the wrong targets. Nuclear energy was put forward as a lusty infant feeding on large lumps of public money and promising to get up and walk within two or three weeks, two or three months or two or three years, only for us to find that in the end the infant was continually collapsing at the legs and could not even attempt to rise. Nuclear energy was to spell the doom of coal in this country, a forecast in the best Millbank tradition, again proved wrong.
It was the miners' group who warned successive Governments that the Nasserisation of the Arab world would mean


dearer oil imports, with resulting balance of trade difficulties and so on, from sources which would become increasingly difficult and less reliable. It has always been politically stupid to base the energy policy for Britain on the idea that the oil market would remain static over the years. World oil markets do not remain static, any more than any other market does, as we are discovering to our cost.
On 11th December the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said:
There is real uncertainty about future prices of fuels and an increasing awareness throughout the world of a danger of a shortage of energy "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December 1972.]
In the Evening Standard of the same date there was a report by Alan Massam that:
One of Britain's leading long-range planning experts believes the country is fast moving into an energy crisis'.
His thesis rests on the growing fear in the United States that the demand for power derived from oil will outstrip supply in the next two or three years.
I believe that is one of the main reasons for the Government's deciding that they must underwrite some of the losses of the National Coal Board. We of the miners' group and other hon. Members on this side did not need computers to come to that conclusion. It was just a little bit of ordinary political commonsense, and we have been stating it for many years.
There have been the other stories, continually changing and contradicting themselves, of the great bonanza beneath the bellies of the fish in the North Sea. It was to provide vast wealth beyond the dreams of man. Gas and oil would flow into our land cheaply and plentifully for everyone. Because of this magnificent find, everyone would be warm and happy—except the miner, who would be on the dole. Because of this belief, a few more pits were closed. But it did not happen just like that. We find that what is coming from the sea is neither cheap nor plentiful. The story has turned rather sour.
It was not the powerful scientific machine at Millbank that forecast what would happen; it was the miner and his representatives, who have been consistent in their demand that the coal industry should be made viable and strong and that the men and women who depend on it should have a fair deal. Now the day

of reckoning has come. I hope that the House will take a little more notice of what the miners' group is saying today than it did in days gone by.
No one welcomes the financial provisions of the Bill more than I do, but I want to know to what use the finance will be put. Does the NCB intend to get down to the hard, basic fact that mines are no use, and never will be, without miners? The Board must provide a good basic pension. It must make provision for the men who will need to retire through redundancy or for age reasons. The Government are making available the necessary finance and machinery to do just that.
There is a simple, dominating fact in any expansion of the industry—I talk about expansion and not contraction. That is the need to take care of the miners. Then they, with their proven co-operation over the past 12 months since the strike, will lead the way to a stronger industry. The idea that coal is a dying asset, that millers are of diminishing importance, must be reversed finally as from today.
When I talk about the miner, I talk about his wife and family. There is provision in the Bill for improving housing conditions, for improving the environmental conditions of the mining villages, for making life more tolerable by modern standards for the miner and his wife who live in those villages, for giving the miner at least an equal opportunity along with other sections of modern society. A miner's wife in a mining village has to deal with the same dirt, dust and smoke as her husband may have to deal with underground.
I want extra provision for the isolated mining villages. When we talk about the mining industry we should not look back too much. We must look to the future. Some of this money must he earmarked for the miner, the man who has perhaps given 40 or 50 years to the industry, who has often risen at three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning and walked miles to his work on the surface and has then walked miles underground before he even began work. He has to work in the most hazardous, arduous and filthy conditions met by any member of society. We must restore to these men the faith in their own industry. We must give them back the dignity to which they are


entitled. The crying need for miners in the future must be recognised.
I plead with the Government to use their good offices with the Coal Board, as we will as miners' representatives, to get rid of this derisory alms money of £1·50 per week paid out after 30, 40 or 50 years of service to the industry—to be increased under the Bill to the magnificent sum of £2·50. This may be the subject of negotiation between the miners' union and the Board but I do not accept that the Government do not have some say in how the money should be spent. They must sanction its expenditure. I suggest that they look at the pension schemes, not above any of the other provisions but at least with special consideration, and ask whether £2·50 a week is enough for a man who has given service in those conditions.
There are thousands of men lying maimed physically and otherwise, men who cannot draw breath as a result of pneumoconiosis, emphysema and bronchitis. I am sure that the men in the industry will respond as they always have done to fair treatment and fair play from whatever direction it may come. Let us use this money to right the wrongs inflicted on the industry and the miners by successive Governments—more so by Conservative Governments.
Pits were closed because we were losing approximately £1 per ton. Now we need coal because of the world shortage of fuel. On a pure cost basis it will take millions of pounds to reopen those pits and get at the seams. It will take further millions to make new sinkings. Would it not have been better to have kept those pits open at a slight loss, balancing the budget with the economic pits or Government subsidies?
All of this happened because no one would listen to the story being told from the Labour side of the House and from some hon. Members opposite over the years. No one would listen to the men whose feet were on the ground. Instead Governments preferred to listen to men whose heads were in the clouds. I hope that the Government will take the opportunity in this Bill of not only considering the whole coal industry but of considering the establishment of a fuel energy authority.
I am not pleading for a Scottish fuel energy authority or an English authority. I am pleading for a fuel authority for this country so that those who are in charge of the nation and the indigenous fuels which belong to the people can exploit, explore and conserve those fuels for the benefit of the country and those who work in the industry. The Government have lost out, as have other Governments, in not attempting to create a truly integrated fuel policy. I hope that they will not waste any more time but that in Committee they will consider the propostion I have put forward for the creation of a national energy authority for the benefit of us all.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Alexander Wilson) has made an earnest plea that the miners should not be forgotten as we consider this generous and complex Bill. He ended with a plea for the establishment of a fuel energy authority. That is not something of which I had thought but the emergence of the Bill and the problems and questions it raises about the shape of our fuel economy make me wonder whether these matters do not deserve a separate Minister as they used to have. I say this with the greatest respect to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry. From this great Department of Trade and Industry there should be one part taken out and give the separate identity of power and energy for the reasons mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). He said that we are not sure of the future. It requires continuous study and thought.
I look upon the Bill as a necessary injection of capital into a vital industry. We are the last country outside Russia and Poland with the chance of maintaining a coal industry of reasonable size. Not even the United States, Australia or France can today enlarge their coal industry, much as they would like to, by the injection of capital because they can no longer recruit the skilled manpower to restart the industry. The Bill recognises not so much the economic vialibility, because it deals with an industry which will with any luck just break even. It is not promising us more. It is saying that we must hold on to things


as they are. We must hold on to the skilled manpower and the essential source of energy, because once it has gone it has gone for ever.
I should like to speak briefly about two aspects of the Bill. There is the social responsibility aspect, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has properly accepted. I say "properly" but I do not make that remark impertinently. I mean my right hon. Friend made it properly to the House and to the country ad reminded us that we should accept this social responsibility. It is always present in a contracting industry and in an industry where we have still to see greater efficiency. In seeking greater efficiency we must plan for more redeployment of labour, more use of redeployed manpower. This is what the social provisions of the Bill are about—the redundancy payments, compensation for early retirement, rehousing, resettlement and so on, and of course the miners' pension.
All these are very real problems which I know myself because I come from the Kent coalfield. It is a very real problem for a man when he is given early retirement. Retirement at 55 is quite shattering for a person, having his working life cut off a long time before he expected it to be and, perhaps, as is often the case, with very little opportunity of obtaining another job. This has been a great problem which the coal mining industry has had to face over the last 20 years of cataclysmic change. It has faced it with remarkable flexibility, fortitude and courage as the hon. Member for Hamilton has shown.
While not wanting to detain the House I wish to refer to the other side of the Bill, the aspect of operating subsidies, of which there has been criticism. I calculate that the social responsibility aspect of the Bill will involve us in some £200 million over the next five years. Running subsidies will be about £600 million to £650 million over the next five years. They cover four main areas. The one for pithead stocks I agree with. I am glad to see that we are prepared to go up to the figure of 30 million tons again.
Assistance in the provision of coking coal is a natural necessity which has arisen out of our use of natural gas and the smaller quantities of coke produced,

and we have to encourage production of British coke rather than import coke. This will help the steel industry as well. So some assistance from the Government here through the National Coal Board is necessary.
The problem of regional employment, however, is worth some further thought. The expenditure under the Bill is limited up to March 1976. Regional employment is a problem; it is a problem in all industries and it is a problem we have to face. It is proposed that the Government are to subsidise it for a limited period in a way which I think wise on both social and economic grounds. Here I would differ from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West who has questioned this. It is questionable, but I would refer the House to a report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries four years ago when the Committee looked very closely indeed at this question and the problems which arise when coal mines are considered for closure in special development areas and assisted areas.
That report, published in 1968, on page 114, paragraph xiv.64, gave the conclusion of the Committee on this question in these words, that the Committee
are not suggesting that the premium"—
or subsidy—
if there were to be one, should be designed to prevent the closure of collieries making losses on the present scale. The result of the premium would be to encourage production which is marginally uneconomic in terms of accounting costs. Its justification would be that it would tend to divert coal mining activity from areas with a low rate of unemployment to areas with a high rate of unemployment …
That is the nub of the problem.
This temporary arrangement—and a generous one—must be used to help us with our regional problems where we are faced with the decision whether to keep an uneconomic pit open. I hope that the Government would consider the use of this subsidy to do what is said in that report of four years ago, namely, to keep the marginal pits open where there is a high rate of unemployment and little opportunity of redeployment rather than have a blanket provision of such subsidy, because there will be some marginal pits in areas where there is opportunity for redeployment to other jobs. It is most important that there should be liaison


between all the Government Departments concerned with development and further employment opportunities in an area.
On the question of the power stations and coalburn, I calculate the amount at about £100 million up to 1976. I ask the Minister, will it work? I am not trying to crab it. I believe that it will, but I ask the question because it must be asked. Hon. Members who are familiar with the mining industry know that if a jeopardy notice is put on a mine, productivity will immediately rise and absenteeism will come down. Any threat to a mine increases production. Will any subsidy or extra confidence which is given have the reverse effect? I do not think so, but the question has to be asked. Is there not a danger that the market—or at least the price—may seem to be too assured and that this may have a detrimental effect on efficiency and output? It is a fine difference, and it is important that the Government should make the coalburn subsidy understood by the miners and all those who work in the industry.
It is not so much a question of giving the miners a fixed-tonnage market but rather that they still have to achieve that market by efficiency, and if they can do that they can be assured of getting it plus a bit extra which is the coalburn subsidy. There is a degree of sophistication and difficulty about the concept which needs careful explanation and communication.
The National Coal Board has never been slow in communicating its intentions. One of the secrets of the success of the contraction of the coal industry since the war—if the contraction of an industry can be called a success—has been its remarkably good communication from management to men. There has been an understanding of where the industry was going. The industry is remarkable for its dedication, for its willingness to succeed and for its lack of industrial strife and trouble under tremendous pressures.
I make reference in passing to the good industrial relations which the miners have chalked up for themselves, which is second to none, even including the cost to the industry of the disastrous strike a year ago. We can and should trust the

miners, now above all. The Government are prepared to invest a great deal of money in the industry, and it is an investment in men and management, not in target figures. Everything depends on the men's acceptance of a preparedness to work to the Bill. They have earned our respect and trust by their past performance and they will earn it again.
On the question of whether one can or should trust the miners, I quote from page 12 of Lord Robens' book "Ten Year Stint" which deals with the contraction of the industry:
That this fantastic reduction in manpower and closure of 406 pits was achieved without losing a ton of coal in industrial disputes for that reason … is a tribute to the unions and management in the coal fields throughout the United Kingdom.… Without the understanding and co-operation of the unions and of the men themselves, this task could never have been accomplished.
It is important to remember that there are people who say that the Government are being generous and will give £1,200 million to the coal industry over the next three to five years but that this could all be wrecked if the miners put forward another big wage claim. Of course the miners will come forward for an adjustment in their wage structure at a time of inflation; this is to be expected. The National Coal Board is already prepared to expect such an adjustment. This applies to all industries. But we need not think that miners will try to wreck the great opportunity which the Government are now prepared to give them.
I welcome the realism behind the Bill. I hope that it will prove to be more than just a short-term medication to get the industry on its feet for another three to five years. This is the sort of imaginative treatment for which the industry has waited for years. Perhaps those in it would like to have been treated in this way 10 years ago and perhaps also they would not wish to have seen the industry contract as much as it has done. But it is all water under the bridge. The Government's move into this industry will set it on its feet again as one of the power bases of British industry.
There are many Jonahs who seem to enjoy the prospect of seeing things go wrong so long as it proves that their political dogma is right. I do not take that view. We live in changing times and it is difficult to change one views,


and sometimes even more difficult to eat one's words. I have no intention of going down with all hands with "Rule Britannia" ringing in my ears. I would rather change the tune if I thought that it would save the ship.
I take my hat off to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry for being brave enough to come forward with this imaginative and generous step and for showing their trust in the industry. The Government will look foolish if that trust is seen to be misplaced. I do not think that will happen.
I believe that there are too many Tories around—this does not apply to any of my hon. Friends who are present at the moment—who have their tails between their legs. We have no right to appear either depressed or lacking in confidence. We were elected to govern, we expected to succeed and we shall succeed. But we must show that we can do so.
The Secretary of State and the Minister for Industry have shown their confidence in the coal industry by bringing forward the Bill. I believe that they are right to do so. We are lucky to have confident and competent men like Derek Ezra and his team at the National Coal Board to implement the Bill. We are also lucky to have Joe Gormley in the National Union of Mineworkers—and even Lawrence Daly believes in working his union constitutionally, which is a valuable asset.
I have no pessimism about the Bill or the problems in the coal industry. Pessimism will get us nowhere. The only hope for Britain is to show a great deal of optimism about the prospects in this industry. If we can show our confidence, we stand a chance of breeding even more confidence which is vital for those who work in the industry. We must breathe a new life into the industry—an industry which has been told too often in the past that it is on the verge of death. By our words here and by our determination we can help to build this industry into the strongest and most efficient source of power in Britain and, of course, in Europe as well.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. John Cronin: As usual the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) made a very interesting

speech. I was greatly attracted by his idea that there should be a Minister for Mines, though one cannot help thinking of the truism that it depends who the Minister is and what policies are adopted.
The hon. Member for Canterbury referred to these proposals as being generous, as did a number of his hon. Friends. But the Government would have been failing in their duty if they had not brought in the Bill at this stage. Indeed it could well have been brought in much earlier. Everything on which money is to be spent under the Bill is vital to the wellbeing of the country's economy. In his lucid speech, the Minister said that if the coal industry were allowed to contract, in view of the tendency for oil to become scarcer, to have greater demands and to go up in price, there would be a danger to the country's economy in depending too much on other fuels besides coal. The Minister also referred to the social costs which the Government have had to pay. These are two compelling reasons why any responsible Government would have had to introduce a Bill like this one. There is no question of generosity. The Bill will ensure that in terms of its fuel policy the country's economy stays on an even keel for the time being.
Reference has been made to the money which is being spent on the subsidies for coking coal. This has been done by the Common Market countries for years. It is no startling act of generosity on the part of the Government. This capital reconstruction was overdue years ago.
Finally the Minister referred to the effects of the miners' strike as being a very important reason for the National Coal Board deficit of £157 million last year and £100 million this year. But who was responsible for the strike? No one but the Government. Certainly it was the most unnecessary strike ever to have occurred in any of our large industries.
I suggest that the Bill is not overgenerous. It is an essential business-like Bill which is dictated by economic necessity. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) said that the Minister appeared in the guise of Santa Claus. Under the robes of Santa Claus and with the accountants in the Department of Trade and Industry whispering in


his ears, the Minister although a likeable person is looking at us with the cold eyes of Scrooge. Let us have no illusions.
I represent on this side of the House the South Derbyshire and Leicestershire miners. The first question that they will ask me when I return to my constituency is, "What is there in this Bill for us? What do we get out of it?" It is a debatable question. Most of what the miners will get out of it depends on negotiation with the National Coal Board. If the NCB were an ordinary employer we should be happier about it. But the board does not negotiate with the miners. It does exactly what the Government tell it to do.
I should like a reassurance from the Minister that the Government will not continue to interfere with negotiations and induce the NCB against its will to try to diminish the miners' standard of living, as happened before the coal strike. There is no doubt that the standard of living of our miners should be raised higher. Miners in the United States and the Soviet Union have a much higher standard of living than do miners here. Bearing in mind how indispensable coal is to our economy, how co-operative the miners are, how skilled they are and what arduous and dangerous conditions they work in, one cannot help feeling that they ought to have the highest standard of living of any industrial workers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Alexander Wilson) spoke about miners' pensions. I understand that the Minister said that pensions will go up from the present £1·50 a week to £2·50 a week. But is it not the case that if the pension goes up to £2·50 the increase will be reduced immediately by the loss of supplementary benefit? I do not feel that the miners will do well out of that. In any event, a pension scheme bringing in a pension of £2·50 a week for miners is derisory. It is unworthy of the House to talk about that in seriousness as a desirable benefit.

Mr. Boardman: I merely referred to the increase which the NUM asked for during discussion as being £2·50.

Mr. Cronin: I now turn to Clause 3, which authorises the Government to give a grant of 50 per cent. in respect of ex-

penditure incurred by the Board on redundancy payments, loss of superannuation and employment prospects, removal and re-settlement expenses, the provision of housing and the maintenance of certain welfare activities.
I cannot understand why the Government cannot pay all the costs of such matters. The provision of housing, welfare activities and removal and resettlement expenses are normally dealt with at the public's expense. They are not usually the province of employers. The other payments are all for circumstances brought about by acts of Government policy. There is a strong case for the Government making a 100 per cent. contribution rather than one of 50 per cent. towards the policies referred to in Clause 3.
On 10th January of this year the National Union of Mineworkers would have begun its negotiations with the National Coal Board, but last Friday a remarkable letter was written by the Prime Minister. He wrote to Lord Cooper, the General Secretary of the General and Municipal Workers Union and to Mr. Hetherington, the Chairman of the Gas Council. The Prime Minister said:
Until such time as the Government is able to announce guidelines, negotiations, whether in the public or private sectors, should not be carried to the point of offers of improved remuneration.

Mr. Boardman: The letter which the hon. Gentleman has quoted was written by the Prime Minister to Lord Cooper and only to Lord Cooper in response to a letter from Lord Cooper.

Mr. Cronin: I am happy to accept that correction as long as we both agree that the letter was sent by the Prime Minister. However, I should like all hon. Members to consider the effect of the letter on the morale of the coal industry. The miners expected their claim to be discussed on 10th January so that when the freeze is over there would be some basis on which to base their wage claim. But the Prime Minister's letter interdicts that expectation.
Will the Minister tell us whether the Prime Minister's letter has the force of law? I cannot recollect any legislation which has been passed in this House which gives the Prime Minister the right


to order the Board to stop negotiating. Will the Board negotiate on 10th January or will the Prime Minister's letter be accepted as being something in the nature of a law?
I rarely find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), but when he spoke of the arrogant illegality of the Prime Minister's order—given to the general secretary of a union with no authority from this House—I was right on his side. He expressed the situation with a clarity which we must all applaud. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether there are to be negotiations between the National Coal Board and the NUM on 10th January. Or are we, with the Prime Minister's temporary assumption of dictatorial powers, to have a cessation of such negotations?
I propose to truncate my speech because other hon. Members wish to speak, but I must make the point that all of us, on both sides of the House, are disappointed that the Minister is not in a position to give us some idea of the Government's policy for future coal production and levels of employment. One appreciates that there are difficulties in giving such figures but we should bear in mind that both the United States and the Soviet Union have enormously increased coal production and are continuing to do so. There is no reason why we, too, should not increase our coal production, thereby making ourselves more and more independent of foreign fuels and able to run our economy at our own pleasure and as effectively and as efficiently as we want.
We have a very fine coal industry. It we can only get the Government to understand what should be done to help it, it will make a tremendous success of itself and the miners in the process will be able to unleash to the full all their skills and help this country go forward.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Richard Body: As there is still a queue of hon. Members who seek to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, my brevity will be compounded by discourtesy to the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) in that I shall not follow the points he made. But I am sure that he will understand. I speak not on behalf of the miners—I have no

right to do so—but I believe that I speak for many members of the general public who have the right to answers to certain questions.
One of the most renowned take-over kings of the post-war era—someone who knows a great deal about making a business profitable—is reputed to have been guided by one slogan—"Maximise your assets". It seems to me that since its inception the National Coal Board has not only failed to do that but has also gobbled up over a period of years the assets of a large number of industrial companies. It has not been alone in this. All the nationalised industries have done it. A study a few years ago showed that no fewer than 1,000 industrial companies had their assets controlled by nationalised industries. The return on the capital of Thomas Cook and Son was estimated to be only 1 per cent., yet there was a queue of firms willing to take over and run Cook's with borrowed capital—borrowed at an interest rate far in excess of 1 per cent.
How many industrial companies are henceforth to be controlled by the National Coal Board? One sees from the Board's accounts that it still has a very large number. At one time it was known that it controlled 71 industrial companies. How many of them are to be released? My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry, having gone at a gentle trot, suddenly broke into an uncontrolled canter so that I missed the number he quoted, and I wonder how far the Board is to go in this respect. What criterion is being adopted? Why are some being disposed of and others not? I am sure that, if the Bill had been introduced in 1970 or 1971, almost all of them would have been disposed of; but, then, 1972 is not exactly a vintage year for Toryism.
Some of us still adhere to the view that the Government should hold the ring, and they cannot justly guide and arbitrate over others if they themselves have a major share in the commercial enterprises of this country. Being no longer a disinterested party, they cannot be regarded as an impartial arbitrator or an independent tribunal. They become, in a word, judge in their own cause.
I am sorry that it has been suggested that the Bill is in harmony with, and


is consistent with, the policies of the European Communities. I think that that may be true only superficially, because they have not in Europe the same touching faith in public ownership. Public ownership has been introduced there not to suffocate competition but as a stimulus towards it, and that is not the hall-mark of this Bill.
My second doubt—again, I shall put it as briefly as I can—is that the Bill is inflationary. In so far as it provides a running subsidy—my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Crouch) calculated it as about £600 million over the course of its effective life—the Bill is wholly inflationary. There is a simple old-fashioned question: Where is the money coming from? Let us not be naîve. We shall not increase taxation for the support of the coal industry. On Budget day, we shall not hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer announce woefully that the rate of value added tax will have to be 12½ per cent. instead of 10 per cent. in order to support the coal industry in accordance with the present Bill. Nor need we pretend that, by some vigorous growth in the gross domestic product, we shall be able to do it for nothing.
Let us be honest with ourselves. This added support will be met from—dreadful euphemism—the net borrowing requirement. Rightly or wrongly, we have reduced taxation in recent years. Yet at the same time we have increased expenditure year after year. Expenditure now exceeds revenue by thousands of million of pounds. The excess is on a scale we have never known before, and this year it will come to about £4,000 million.
This money, we know, is "borrowed." I put the word in inverted commas because it is not borrowed in the true and honest meaning of the word. It is obtained by increasing the number of Treasury bills in circulation and by other methods which all add to the money stock. In blunt terms, the Government will pay for this support to the coal industry by printing more money. The Bill will have the effect of making it necessary to add to the borrowing by adding to the money supply.
It is right, of course, to increase the stock of money if the real wealth of the

country expands equally. But if we increase the money in circulation without increasing the real wealth of the nation, there is inevitably more money in circulation to exchange for the same amount of wealth. That is inflation, and that, I regret to say, is what the Bill seems to do.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. Adam Hunter: I will shorten my speech by cutting out all the preliminaries and simply saying that I welcome the Bill. I understand that only one of my hon Friends remaining wishes to speak and I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that he catches your eye, because I shall take only a few minutes.
I should have liked to deal with the clauses dealing with concessionary coal, redundancy payments and pensions. However, I will leave them out and start with Clause 6 which deals with the Secretary of State being given power to make payments to the National Coal Board to meet the cost of extra coal burn by the electricity generating boards. I hope that will encourage the use of coal for electricity generating purposes.
This is particularly good for Scotland. In 1971–72 55 per cent. of all fuels used in Scotland for generating electricity was coal—5,793,000 tons. If the Scottish coal industry production is to be maintained at its present level the South of Scotland Electricity Board must re-think its philosophy on coal burning in power stations.
It was disturbing to read the SSEB Report for 1971–72 being critical of the security of the supply of coal. This part of the report emanated from the Electricity Board's experience of the miners' strike earlier this year—the first national strike in the mining industry for 46 years. The way that the SSEB has reacted to this breakdown in industrial relations is deplorable. One would think that miners, who have been the most patient and loyal section of workers in the country for almost five decades, are ready to down tools on the slightest pretext.
After all, the electricity industry has not been without its own industrial disputes. Two years ago its relations with its workers were at a low ebb and resulted in supplies to electricity users being cut for a number of weeks—and


only a few months ago there was the threat of similar action. Happily, this was resolved before consumers were inconvenienced again. There was no outcry by the public and no rush away from the use of electricity for heating purposes. The mass of the people understand and appreciate that all work people have the right to defend their interests when their standard of life is threatened by inflation or anything else. But not the SSEB. The miners' dispute seems to have given it the ammunition that it wanted further to denounce the uneconomic price of coal required for power stations.
The general theme of the Bill shows a growing awareness by the Government that coal still has a very important part to play as one of our indigenous fuels. I sincerely hope that this is not simply a holding operation to try to get over some difficulty about the supply of fuel in recent years.
The miners' group in this House, with others, has always maintained that coal would again come into its own. This view has the support of mineral experts and those who have studied energy needs and trends. We have always argued for an integrated fuel or energy policy.
The provisions in the Bill will help the coal industry in general throughout the country's coalfields, but the benefits may be spread a little unevenly. The Scottish coalfield has been in the doldrums for a few years. The NUM and the Scottish Area Board, before the Bill was introduced, had joint consultations and a policy of full co-operation to increase production was agreed. This augurs well for the future.
I now feel that, with the prospects of North Sea oil in the years to come, Scotland should have an energy policy of some kind. Something must be done in this direction to take away uncertainty regarding the future of the industry in Scotland, and some reasonable assurance should be given by the Government that the assistance contained in the Bill will extend to Scotland as a region. For too long we have been working under the grim shadow of uncertainty.
Last week at Question Time I suggested that the Secretary of State for Scotland should be making a close study

of the rôle that coal should play in Scotland in the years ahead.
I am being parochial because we in Scotland have not the opportunity to put forward our ideas regarding coal and its future. I am sorry if I am taking up the Under-Secretary's time, but I sincerely hope that he will bring to the notice of the Secretary of State for Scotland some of the points which I have mentioned, and in particular that an energy policy should be considered in a Scottish context.
Nine months ago I received a reply to a Question to the effect that it would cost £2·1 million to convert Portabello power station from coal to oil-burning and that the conversion would take nine months to complete. No decision has been taken on this conversion so far, and I feel that to sanction it would be a waste of money, in addition to being a major body blow to the coal industry in Scotland.
The Bill holds out some hope for coal in Scotland—I grant that. It will be recognised as a possible step forward to the time when coal will get its rightful share, as an indigenous fuel, in the generating of electricity in Britain as a whole.

9.5 p.m.

Dr. Edmund Marshall: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Adam Hunter) for making time available for me to contribute briefly to the debate.
During the debate there has emerged a three-fold analysis of the need for the Bill. We have looked at the strategic aspects of the need for indigenous fuel development, we have looked at the social aspects of the Bill, and we have looked at the long-term economic need for a viable coal industry.
I think that perhaps the greatest doubt has been cast on the economic side of the question, but I suggest that there is one emphasis which has not been put so far, and that is that a massive financial injection of this nature is necessary to enable the coal industry to work on a more economic basis; to enable it to shift its main producing centres from so many of the older collieries to new deep collieries which can themselves maintain economic production.
It is clear to me that by 1977 it will be impossible to maintain anything like our present levels of manpower and employment in the industry without sinking large new pits, and I am particularly glad that Clause 9 makes special mention of the need for help to assisted areas. This is particularly relevant in view of the need for new collieries.
Close to my constituency in the West Riding of Yorkshire there are vast, untapped reserves of coal in workable, thick seams, all of it in one of the intermediate areas of the country, and it seems to me that in that North Yorkshire area of the National Coal Board there is a great opportunity to switch production from some of the older collieries which will be worked out in the west of the coalfield and develop new pits on the east side.
The National Coal Board has not yet pinpointed where it would like to see new pits sunk, and there has been a lot of scaremongering on this issue in the town of Selby. The Board has not said that it wants to mine under Selby. That is probably the last thing that it has it in mind to do. All that the Board has said is that it wishes to develop new collieries to the east of the existing workings which are at the pits of Ledston Luck in the constituency of the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) and to the east of the workings of Kellingley colliery in my constituency. There has been a lot of irresponsible talk about the dangers to Selby Abbey and the port works at Selby.
Without this kind of development we cannot hope that the industry will become economic in itself, and it is on this very ground that the injection of capital and the Christmas spirit and generosity portrayed by the Government are welcome.

9.14 p.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: The first message that I have for the Minister is that I too welcome the Bill and I do not intend to vote against it. My welcome is tempered by the fact that it could not have come on a worse day for me because, as will be obvious from my appearance and probably my voice, I am suffering from a very bad cold. More importantly, however, in the life of North Country Members of Parliament

this is a time when we like to visit our constituencies. I have had to cancel many enjoyable Christmas parties today. I used to work with an old miner who said that he had missed many a good "do" through not being invited. I was invited to all those functions but had to decline the invitations. They are very good for the grass roots.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) said, the Bill could easily have come a couple of months ago. If it had done so I should not have been winding-up for the Opposition. That is an honour I much value. It has been given to me not because someone has recognised talent which had been hidden until now but simply because I am the chairman of the miners' parliamentary group.
When the Secretary of State made his statement to the House on 11th December he mentioned several important matters, but for me the most important thing he mentioned was this:
There is real uncertainty about future prices of fuels and an increasing awareness throughout the world of the danger of a shortage of energy. We in the United Kingdom must ensure that our national energy assets are wisely used."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December 1972; Vol. 848, c. 31.]
The Secretary of State mentioned the uncertainty of prices and the dangers of a world energy shortage, and these facts are accepted by all informed commentators and recognised experts on this subject. I hope to develop that theme later.
As the Minister for Industry did not make the matter quite clear, my first question to the Under-Secretary when he replies is this. Is the Bill merely a holding operation to prevent more unemployment in areas of already high unemployment or is it the beginning of a proper, carefully thought-out national energy policy on a resource-cost basis? The Minister for Trade, when questioned by Mr. Ian Smart of the "Analysis" programme team, said that his thinking—which must be the Government's thinking—was on a resource-cost basis and that we could not leave this to market forces. If it is merely a holding operation to prevent more unemployment, I welcome that, but I hope that it is the start of a real energy policy because if


we do not take this opportunity we shall lose the opportunity to tackle this problem and go a long way to solving it.
The Prime Minister's statement on the communiqué following the meeting of Heads of State, in which an energy policy was mentioned, was not developed too much, but obviously there must be a plan for this. That statement, the statement of the Secretary of State on 11th December and the Bill kicked into touch what had up to then been the only policy statement we had had, and that was the 1967 White Paper which, the miner's parliamentary group argued, as we did when in Government, was a totally fallacious document and out of date from almost the moment it was introduced.
I remind the House that we never had a debate on that White Paper. We were due to have a debate for one day on the White Paper and for one day on the Bill. Unfortunately—I shall not go into the reasons—we did not debate it.
What was wrong about the 1967 White Paper was that it started from entirely the wrong angle. It left to coal the crumbs after each of the other three fuels had been allocated their parcels. Instead, it should have seen how much coal this country could mine economically in the wider sense and then allocated to the other three fuels what was necessary. That was one of the reasons we argued against it.
This time the Government have a breathing space. If they study the energy policy document of the NUM—we have produced one in the past, but not as detailed as this—which asks for a modest increase, about 10 million tons, in present coal production, and if they study the joint NCB-union document, they will find the basis for a wise energy policy.
All the industrialised countries consume between them about 90 per cent. of the present energy supply and the other 75 per cent. of mankind consumes the other 10 per cent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. Albert Roberts) said, the 75 per cent. will not always stay in that position. What will happen when they want a larger share? All countries are bothered about this. America is seriously worried. If we do not take the opportunity, future generations will condemn us.
The widest possible debate should take place on energy policy thinking. The Government are not a long way off presenting a document. We believe that their think tank, headed by Lord Rothschild, their capability unit—I hope that it is not their incapability unit which will bring it forward; we know that they have one or two of those—is working on this. We had a leak on this from Mr. Chapman Pincher a few months ago which concentrated some minds.
If the Government bring forward an energy policy, the attitude of the miners, their representatives and the NCB will have been vindicated. It will be all for the public good. We should have these wider debates so that people can see that the insurance for the future—that is what the Bill is about—will be money wisely spent.
The hon. Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith) said forcibly that the Bill should point the way to a substantially increased coal production. I was puzzled when the Minister mentioned a figure which the 1967 White Paper gave as the figure that we would be reaching in about two or three years—namely, a deep-mined production of about 120 million tons.

Mr. Tom Boardman: I would only ask the hon. Gentleman to read tomorrow what I said. I will not take time by repeating it now, but he has misunderstood.

Mr. McGuire: This is one time when I am delighted to have misunderstood the Minister. The whole background of the Bill is that, since we have a total production now of about 140 million tons, of which about 130 million tons are deep-mined, there is bound to be a substantial increase in coalburn, in power stations for instance. Mr. Hawkins, who the miners' parliamentary group met a few weeks ago, says that he will be able to take 10 million to 15 million extra tons without any trouble if the price is right. If Clauses 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the Bill give us the necessary take-off to make the price attractive to him—and surely this is part of the nature of the Bill, which mentions increased coal sales—the present production is bound to increase. I should have thought that one of the main purposes of the Bill was to consolidate and improve on our present coal production.
I want to touch on a point that I made earlier, namely the world energy supply shortage. I wish to quote from the National Westminster Bank Quarterly Review of May 1972. It says on page 13:
If the trends of the 1960s continue, between three and four and a half times as much energy will be used in the world as a whole in the year 2000 as in 1970. Short of some as yet unknown source of energy being discovered, 60 to 70 per cent. of the increase must be met by fossil fuels. … The resulting faster rate of pit closures will leave the usable supplies of coal in the ground so that alternative sources of energy will be required. This move might not be to the disadvantage of the miners themselves since it could result in a streamlined industry supporting fewer but better-paid workers, as has happened in the United States. But for the long-term energy situation it could be disastrous.
It then deals with the oil supply problem, the question of the oil-producing countries and the OPEC policies.
These countries are not going to stand still. Their economies are so low that they control the rate; they can put it down or up. We cannot harm their economies. People say that these countries have got to sell it. But they have very low-geared economies, and that is not necessary. They will demand more and more money. The United States will be a keen importer and therefore the price will inevitably go up. People will then say "We can meet this situation by an expansion of the nuclear programme."
The miners have been accused of being Luddites and of not wanting a nuclear programme. In fact, nowhere do we see that attitude in the industry. The miners believe that they must keep in the forefront of such technological developments. But there are dangers. The full facts of nuclear energy have never been disclosed. People go to extreme lengths to try to prove that it is comparable with coal or even cheaper.
I want to quote from the Second Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, for the Session 1971–72. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever), with his keen brain, was questioning two civil servants who were making the case for nuclear power as being economical. My quotation is from question 179 on page 127. My right hon. Friend said:

I am not making any wrong assumption, it follows inevitably from the evidence I have heard. I will state it for the last time in an effort to be shot down if I have got it wrong; if nobody does so I shall assume I am right. Sir John"—
that was Sir John Hill, a civil servant—
has said that so far we have not been able to generate electricity more cheaply by nuclear means than by conventional means. When asked about the AGR he has said that in the first stage of the AGR provision of electricity will again be on a competitive basis with non-nuclear fuels. At a later stage, which is not approximately before us, there will be advantages in competitiveness, but until that later and, shall I say, happier stage is reached, it will be true to say that we will not have had cheaper electricity provided by reason of the nuclear development. It seems to me to follow from what Sir John said. … Have I got it right?
Sir John replied in the affirmative.
That disposes of any arguments that nuclear power has in any way been competitive. When we met the CEGB we found that its most profitable station, running fiat-out every day, was Ratcliffe-on-Soar. We have always said that the coal-fired station situated in its proper place will outstrip any nuclear power station, and that when we compare like with like we find that the two are not in the same class. That is confirmed by the CEGB.
I hope that nobody will have the impression that I want to knock the CEGB. That is not my intention. I recognise its problems. It does not want to be a captive customer to coal in a way which disadvantages it in relation to its competitors. If the Minister can reassure us on coalburn I believe that we can have a happy relationship with the NCB and CEGB which will result in an increased coalburn.
Some Conservative Members seemed to think that the Government were giving money away like a mad millionaire. But the Government are still way behind the German attitude on coal-burning stations. If there is any logic in the Bill, one result of it will be that Drax B and West Burton will be commissioned, which will in turn mean that a new pit will be sunk. That will show that the Government mean business. It will give heart to the industry and galvanise it. But if we gave subsidies on the West German scale, Drax B would receive £170 million over 10 years.
I turn to Clause 3 concerning social costs. Will the Minister confirm that the Government intend to pass on to the NCB grants towards the social costs of manpower redeployment and contraction received from the European Coal and Steel Community?
Clause 4 concerns the redundancy payment schemes. Will the Minister report on the progress achieved in negotiating with the unions better redundancy payments? We do not consider that the present scheme is anything like good enough. I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance on the matter. He has already answered the question I had intended to put on pensions but I was very disappointed by his answer.
In Clause 6 the Bill refers to the sale of coal to the generating Boards. What is really needed is to promote the burn of coal.
I had prepared a question on stocking costs, but the Minister has already answered it saying that stocks will be roughly one-twelfth of production, which will mean about 12 million tons.
The hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) included me in a list of people who had done their best to promote the invention of a double-ended pick. I explained that I was foolish enough to think that by my oratory I could persuade Lord Robens to give that pick a fair trial. That was never given. I said to Lord Robens that I would debate the efficacy of this pick anywhere and that I would win the debate. It was reprehensible of the board to behave in the way it did. If we can do anything together I am willing to do it.
The Bill will help to arrest the decline of a great industry which in the past was the foundation for our industrial greatness and which will be just as necessary for our future prosperity. It will most certainly act as a bastion in the future and prevent us from being held to ransom in the energy supply market.

9.36 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Emery): I am sure that everyone would want me to congratulate the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) upon his first speech from the Opposition Dispatch Box. I do not think it is extending the Christmas spirit if I wish him a long and distinguished

career, preferably from that Box. He will always be welcome while he continues to address the House in the manner he has done tonight.
I pay tribute to the miners and the other men who work down the pits. I am a little surprised that this aspect has been slightly neglected. They have one of the most unpleasant jobs possible. The House ought to pay tribute to their work. In a debate of this nature it is also right that the Government should pay tribute to the National Coal Board and its Chairman. He had a difficult task in taking over when he did, helping to regalvanise the industry and facing the problems which it had in the early part of this year.
The background to this debate is the Government's approach to the nationalised industries. These are a vast national asset which must be made to work sensibly, efficiently and adequately. This is for the benefit of the nation as a whole and for the benefit of employees of the industry, in this case the miners, and the industry's customers. The substantial financial provisions for the coal industry proposed in the Bill underline the Government's determination to ensure that the optimum use is made of the major national asset we have in coal.
Taken together with the other nationalised industries coming within the Department's responsibilities, the coal industry makes up about 8 per cent. of the gross national product and employs about 1 million people—about 4 per cent. of the national industrial labour force. These industries are a vital factor in the economy of the nation as a whole. It is interesting to note that about 90 per cent. of the manpower in the coal industry is employed in assisted areas and other areas where there is a need to provide some sort of assistance to encourage employment.
I need not emphasise that the nationalised fuel industries are essential to our central policies. Their efficiency has important significance for the costs of manufacturing industry as a whole. Thus it is a major concern of the Government to ensure that the whole structure of the nationalised industries is one of maximum efficiency and that it is established on a sound financial basis. This is an objective to which any Government of any political complexion must subscribe, and


it is certainly my approach to the job which I have to do in the Department.
In summing up the debate, which anybody would say has been extensive and most useful, I think I might twit the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley). He was talking about sweetness and light. This is, perhaps, a different sweetness and light from that we saw when the 1967 White Paper was not debated and there were the problems which then went on between the mining group and other Members of the party opposite when they were in Government. That would make interesting reading, but it could not be termed sweetness and light in anybody's imagination.
An interesting thing which I should like to answer directly was the accusation made by the hon. Member for Chesterfield that the Government purposely held up on 7th August publication of the statement on coal and the publication of the Bill. I think it important that the House, and, indeed, the country, should understand that the Government thought that before reaching decisions affecting the industry's future, decisions which are complicated, as we have heard today, and of a radical nature, the industry itself should be consulted. My hon. Friend the Minister for iIndustry wrote specifically to each of the unions and to the management asking how they would propose to deal with the problems which the industry was facing. Further, there was so much taxpayers' money at stake that it would have been irresponsible not to have made sure first that all in the industry would play their full part in re-establishing a successful atmosphere and a successful industry as a whole. That is what has been going on since the correspondence was started and in the joint meetings which have been held.
I turn specifically to a point made by the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Fitch) who talked about consultations between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers. It was right and proper that we should consult not only the National Union of Mineworkers but all in the mining industry who have been participating. The BACM and NACODS all played their part. A considerable step forward has been taken. The trade unions, with the management, have come together to ensure that the

industry is able to take the major steps forward which this Bill would allow.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield also suggested that the Government somehow changed their mind about the importance of the coal industry. He said that when referring to the 1971 Act. I have read the Second Reading speeches of my right hon. Friend who is now the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), and I assert that it is quite wrong to suggest—and it would be quite wrong if it were to be allowed to go unanswered—that there has been a change of atmosphere or that at any time there has been an alteration in the Government's approach to this matter. At no time have we suggested that the coal industry had other than a major rôle to play in the energy policy of this country.
I turn to certain other points which have been raised. Firstly, there was the point about the ECSC payments which could be made under the Bill. That was raised by the hon. Member for Ince and also by the hon. Member for Wigan. They asked whether these would be passed on to the industry. The answer is, yes, they would be, and the balancing factor would be made up by the allowances which are provided for in the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith), the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and others have asked about Drax B and the new coal-fired power statons. If Drax B were to be ordered tomorrow it would not operate before 1978 at the earliest. Our present programme of coal support is intended to alleviate the immediate problems of the next three years and to put coal production on a sound and economic basis. Drax B would not help in that. It is for the CEGB to choose the fuels for new stations, and the decision on both the price and the security of competing fuels is the managerial responsibility of the CEGB. The present assistance to the coal industry gives it the opportunity of improving its competitive position. The Chairman of the CEGB, Mr. Arthur Hawkins, who has been referred to frequently in the debate, said that if the price were right the board could take 75 million tons of coal a year or more. That is a higher level than any so far achieved by the CEGB.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright (Deanne Valley): The Minister is saying that Drax B will not operate for another six years, but what is to prevent it from being a coal and oil or a coal and gas dual-fired station?

Mr. Emery: Nothing prevents it, but I am not here to decide that at this moment. An application would have to be made by the Chairman of the CEGB. It is his responsibility to ensure that this matter is dealt with properly.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) welcomed two-thirds of the Bill and criticised one-third of it. He also asked what was the amount of interest on the capital as written down. The breakdown of the net benefit of £45 million from the capital reconstruction would be allocated to interest savings of £28 million and depreciation of £17 million.

Mr. Powell: I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I did not ask for the breakdown of the £45 million which is being excused. I asked for the expected payment on the capital as now written down—the future written-down capital.

Mr. Emery: I think I can give my right hon. Friend the answer, but I should like to confirm it in writing. I think that next year it is £20 million, the year after £24 million and the year after that £27 million.
In propounding his argument on the third part of the Bill my right hon. Friend referred to a "deliberate waste of human effort". I reject that fairly and squarely and I will say why. Without the assistance given under this part of the Bill there would have to be major closures of mines. If my hon. Friend were to ask those miners whether they would rather be on supplementary benefits and looking for a job or working in the industry, they would not consider being employed a waste of human effort.
When considering whether this money might be more economically used if immediately we were to create new jobs for redundant miners, my right hon. Friend must surely know that all the efforts of Governments, of whatever political complexion, will not create new jobs simply by providing assistance. Such

money could not be used for the immediate re-employment of people who might be made redundant if we were not providing for the payments in the Bill.
Furthermore, when weighing the economic factors we must bear in mind that if coal were not being mined—and this point touches the question of human waste which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West—the Government would have to provide foreign currency out of the balance of payments to import the oil which would be necessary to replace that coal. This would not be helpful to the economy from a foreign exchange point of view.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) asked whether this was a social or commercial measure. [An HON. MEMBER: "He has gone."] I would say to my hon. and learned Friend, although I see that he is not present to hear me say this, that it is both. I cannot understand why he thought it necessary to ask that question. I see that my hon. and learned Friend has now returned. Perhaps he will read my remarks in HANSARD tomorrow.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Adam Butler) asked about the breakdown of the writing-down of assets. The figure of £275 million slightly under-states the full extent by which the relevant assets are over-valued. The figures are as follows: collieries £230 million; associated activities £30 million; houses £18 million; minerals £52 million. This is a total of £330 million. Against this we have to set off about £56 million already written off in the board's published accounts representing provisions made after the 1965 write-off. Therefore the figure has been rounded off to a net sum of £275 million.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Adam Hunter) asked me a question about Scotland, and I was also asked one or two questions by the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). There may have been other points put to me which I have not been able to answer in this reply because of pressure of time, and I shall be delighted to reply to those matters by correspondence.
I was asked by a number of hon. Members about financial disciplines. My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry in


his opening speech made clear that the board would be expected to break even after receipt of grant and to work towards viability. The responsibility for determining the precise amounts of assistance will be with the Government and, in considering the redundant mine workers payment scheme which arises under the 1967 Act, with Parliament. Those amounts will be determined in accordance with criteria laid down by the Government and they will have to be used for the specific purposes which have been set out. These will be determined annually.
I want also to refer to a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Belper in a very well-informed speech about the aspect of safety and health. We all know too well what a hazardous industry mining is. But we can tell ourselves with some confidence that it has been getting safer. The fall in the number of accidents is not merely a reflection of the fall in the number of those employed. The fatal accident rate has been cut by half in the 10 years from 1962 to 1971 and there has been a substantial reduction in the rate for all reportable accidents. However, complacency in this matter is the worst enemy. I wonder how many people in this House or outside it realise that more than one man a week has been killed this year mining coal. We still have a very long way to go before anyone can be satisfied about the safety record.
One specific hazard of mining causes the Government and me personally special concern. It is the scourge of pneumoconiosis. We know that this distressing disease is caused by airborne respirable dust and that the more coal produced on a shift the greater the dust. In this as in other hazards we have made very considerable progress, and the prevalence of pnueumoconiosis in Britain is lower than in any other major coal-producing country. But we are still a very long way from eradicating the disease and because of its long-term nature it could be with us for many years even if all our mines were closed tomorrow. We have the legacy of the past 40 years or more to overcome.
I am convinced that radical perhaps even stern measures, which in their new approach will have to overcome past

prejudices, are necessary. They are needed if we are to have any hope of making acceptable progress towards the eradication of this disease. We have the knowledge on which to base regulations for the control of its cause. The House may like to know that I have put comprehensive proposals to the National Coal Board and the trade unions and I am happy to say that on the whole both sides have expressed their wholehearted support for the principles upon which these regulations are based. There are still matters of detail to be worked out and for them we shall rely largely on the advice of the industry. The NCB, the trade unions and the Government are determined to make a joint effort and to make that effort work. I believe that we are taking a radical step of the greatest importance, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and I are giving this considerable priority in dealing with the general problems of the industry.
The purpose of this Bill is to wipe the slate clean and to provide the industry with a fresh start. We welcome the spirit of co-operation shown by the NCB and the unions in tackling the problems. But the future now rests with them. They must translate their intentions into actions and themselves create a viable industry. The Government money necessary to tide them over the next few years could be very large, but I must emphasise as my hon. Friend did in his opening speech that the figures included in the Bill are maximum figures. The future of the industry depends on its competitiveness which in turn depends on how successfully the industry is containing costs.
The current wage agreement between the NCB and the National Union of Mineworkers runs until the end of February. At its annual conference the NUM passed resolutions on wages. But no claim has yet been submitted and no negotiations have started. I must make it clear that it is no part of the purpose of the Bill to finance increases in wages. The ability of the coal industry to support steadily rising real wages for miners necessarily must depend upon continuing improvements in productivity and on other economies.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

COAL INDUSTRY [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the capital reconstruction of the National Coal Board, it is expedient to authorize—

(1) the remission of outstanding liabilities of the Board to the Secretary of State in respect of the principal of or interest on sums borrowed, or deemed to have been borrowed, from him by the Board before the end of March 1973;
(2) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the grants so payable under section 1 of the Coal Industry Act 1971 which is attributable to any provisions of the said Act of the present Session whereby—

(a) the financial years of the Board in respect of which such grants may be made will or may include any of the Board's financial years not later than that ending in March 1978;
(b) the limit imposed by subsection (3)(c) of that section in respect of the financial year of the Board ending in March 1974 is raised from one-third to one-half; and
(c) the limit of £24 million imposed by that section on the aggregate amount of the grants thereunder is to apply only to expenditure of the Board for the period consisting of the financial years of the Board ending in March 1972 and in March 1973, respectively,
subject to the limitations that grants made under that section in respect of any of the financial years referred to in sub-paragraph (a) of this paragraph shall not exceed one-half of the relevant expenditure of the Board (as defined by section 3(3)(b) of the Coal Industry Act 1965) for that financial year, and that the aggregate grants which may be so made in respect of those financial years, if they extend to March 1978, shall not exceed £100 million or, if they extend only to March 1976, shall not exceed £60 million;
(3) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums so payable under section 3 of the Coal Industry Act 1967 which is attributable to any provisions of the said Act of the present Session whereby—

(a) a scheme under that section may provide for payments to be made either to or in respect of persons to whom the scheme applies;
(b) such a scheme may provide for payments to or in respect of persons becoming redundant within a period up to 26th March 1978; and

(c) payments by the Secretary of State under such a scheme may include payments to the Board in respect of the carrying out by the Board of arrangements relating to concessionary coal,
subject to the limitation that, if the period referred to in sub-paragraph (b) of this paragraph extends up to 26th March 1978, the aggregate payments made by the Secretary of State under that section during the financial years of the Board ending in March 1974 to March 1978 shall not exceed £100 million or, if that period extends only up to 28th March 1976, the aggregate payments so made during the financial years of the Board ending in March 1974, 1975 and 1976, respectively, shall not exceed £60 million;
(4) the making out of moneys provided by Parliament of payments to the Board reimbursing to the Board the whole or part of the Board's increased contributions towards benefits payable under the mineworkers' pension scheme, subject to the limitations that—

(a) the contributions are contributions towards benefits payable in respect of any part of a period beginning on 1st April 1973 and not extending beyond the financial year of the Board ending in March 1978, and
(b) the aggregate amount of the payments so made to the Board, if that period extends to the end of that financial year, shall not exceed £40 million or, if it extends only to the end of the financial year of the Board ending in March 1976, shall not exceed £25 million;
(5) the making out of moneys provided by Parliament of payments to the Board for the purposes of promoting the sale of coal by the Board to Electricity Boards during the financial years of the Board ending in March 1974, 1975 and 1976, respectively, subject to the limitation that the aggregate amount of the payments so made shall not exceed £100 million;
(6) the making out of moneys provided by Parliament of grants to the Board towards any cost incurred by the Board in building up and maintaining stocks of coal or coke, subject to the limitations that—

(a) any such cost is incurred during a period beginning on 1st April 1973 and not extending beyond the financial year of the Board ending in March 1978, and
(b) the aggregate amount of the grants so made, if that period extends to the end of that financial year, shall not exceed £70 million or, if it extends only to the end of the financial year of the Board ending in March 1976, shall not exceed £40 million;
(7) the making out of moneys provided by Parliament of grants for the purpose of contributing towards measures for securing supplies of coke for use by the iron and steel industry within the European Coal


and Steel Community, subject to the limitations that—

(a) the grants are made during a period beginning on 1st April 1973 and not extending beyond the financial year of the Board ending in March 1978, and
(b) the aggregate amount of the grants so made, if that period extends to the end of that financial year, shall not exceed £75 million or, if it extends only to the end of the financial year of the Board ending in March 1976, shall not exceed £45 million:
(8) the making out of moneys provided by Parliament, during any of the financial years of the Board ending in March 1974, 1975 and 1976 respectively, of grants to the

Board, not in the aggregate exceeding £210 million, for the purpose of assisting the Board in moderating contraction of the coal mining industry in Great Britain;
(9) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums so payable in respect of administrative expenses of the Secretary of State:
(10) any increase in the sums payable into or out of the Consolidated Fund which is attributable to any provisions of the said Act of the present Session relating to borrowing by the Board from the Commission of the European Communities or from the European Investment Bank.—[Mr. Emery.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Business relating to European Community Secondary Legislation may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until Eleven o'clock or for a period of one hour after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.—[Mr. Murton.]

NON-METROPOLITAN DISTRICTS

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [20th December]:
That the English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd November be approved.—[Mr. Graham Page.]

Question again proposed.

10.1 p.m.

Sir George Sinclair: There are many activities which one would not seek to have interrupted, but to have some important points to make on behalf of one's constituents, with only two minutes in which to make them, and then to be allowed to start the next one and a half hours of debate on the next evening is a most agreeable and welcome experience. I am grateful to those who so arranged it.
I was among the few who were able to say to my right hon. Friend how grateful to him many of my constituents were for taking into account their wishes on the county in which they would wish to stay. He agreed in Committee that they should express their wishes. However, they had no time to express them before the Bill passed through. But when they did, the first of the parishes expressed themselves in an unequivocal way. And the Minister has said, and he gave a pledge, that they would be allowed to stay in Surrey. All those who were greatly concerned about the proposed change of environment are now rejoicing that the Minister has honoured the pledge or given the promise to honour the pledge which he and his colleagues gave in Committee.
I know that this pledge has produced some procedural difficulties. However, hope that, when winding up, the Minister will say that he will make all speed with the arrangements by which those who have been in Surrey for time immemorial will be allowed to regain the

sanotuary of our county after the shortest possible interval. It is, of course, ridiculous that many thousands of my constituents should take part in elections which will put them into West Sussex—a county with which they have nothing in common and with which they wish to have no association—knowing that after a short time, thanks to the Minister's decision, they will be back with those whom they know.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring, as he was when the House adjourned, to the promise which he alleges was made in regard to what is to be Area 8 in Surrey. The point which the hon. Gentleman is making is of great interest to many other hon. Members. But is the hon. Gentleman aware that the proposition that the Minister can subsequently amend any part of this statutory instrument is something which is novel to me? I doubt whether the Minister has that power. If there is such power, there will be quite a few hon. Members who would like to see it exercised.

Sir G. Sinclair: The right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) as usual has a point and he grasps it with a determination for which Devonians, or those based on Devon—I speak as a Cornishman—are famous.
We are grateful to my right hon. Friend for his speech. There is one parish in my constituency—Charlwood—which has yet to make up its mind. It has been told that until the question has been properly posed on the boundaries of Gatwick airport—which has unfortunately been sacrificed to a county which knows nothing about the management of airports—it will not be forced to make its decision. All the indications are that this parish will decide to remain with the kindly mother county which has nurtured it.
My right hon. Friend's decision has certain consequences. According to Part 36 of the Schedule, under District 8, two of the parishes which are to remain in Surrey, although they are to undertake a short visit to West Sussex—however disagreeable that may be for them—are going to have to be reabsorbed into one of two districts in Surrey. It is important that the Boundary Commission should


have an open mind on this question. It is not clear that these two parishes would wish to come into Surrey District 8. They might well prefer to go into District 9, which is Reigate, their geographical neighbour.
I am glad to see that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) has just flown back from the United Nations. "Ladybird, ladybird"—I mean no personal reference—"fly away home, your house is on fire…". He is defending Ban-stead, and Banstead is a very considerable local authority area, extremely welt run by any standard we know. If the two parishes of Horley and Charlwood, which I believe are coming home like roosting pigeons to Surrey, tell the Boundary Commission that they want to go to the new District 9 of Reigate, this district would, I suggest, be far too big if it also absorbed Banstead. What I have said, will, I hope, reinforce the case for Banstead remaining a district of its own.
I ask my right hon. Friend, who, I know, does not issue directives to them, to consult the Boundary Commissioners and ask them to take into consideration the new situation which will arise when the two parishes of Holley and Charlwood come home to Surrey. I ask, first, that the Commission should keep an open mind on their final disposal as between District 8 and District 9 and undertakes the maximum local consultation and, second, that it reconsiders the possibility of Banstead remaining an entity on its own.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Roger White: I congratulate the Government on allowing us this time tonight—

Mr. Thorpe: Why congratulate them?

Mr. White: It will be the only thing on which I shall congratulate them, so the right hon. Gentleman need have no fear. I express my regret at what my right hon. Friend had to say in the short debate we had on 6th December last, on the Consolidated Fund Bill, when he spoke of my jumping the gun somewhat in raising the question of Districts 2 and 3 following Report No. 1 of the Local Government Boundary Commission.
My right hon. Friend was unable to give any concessions on that occasion. However, both he, on 6th December, and my noble Friend in the other place, on 12th December, were at pains to emphasise both the impartiality and the integrity of the Boundary Commission and of the local meetings held under the chairmanship of Sir Edmund Compton. I do not imagine that any hon. Member would doubt the integrity or impartiality of either of those bodies, but what is in doubt, in my view, is the wisdom of some of their findings.
In his reply to me on 6th December, my right hon. Friend quoted from the proposals of the Kent County Council and the support which the county had given to the Boundary Commission's Report. In fact, Kent County Council's proposals were almost identical to what was presented in the draft proposals, so it was not surprising that they should be quoted and favourably commented on by the county council when it came to look at Report No. 1.
On 6th December—this is col. 1541 of HANSARD—my right hon. Friend said that Strood rural district had been part of the city of Rochester since mediaeval times. That is plainly true, but it in no way obscures the fact that there have been changes since mediaeval times. One might almost say that the changes have been legion.
Further, my right hon. Friend said that
Strood Rural District Council was the moving force in pressing for a separate district for Strood."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th December 1972; Vol. 847, c. 1540.]
That is equally true, but it does not invalidate the referendum held by the Strood rural district authority in which 60 per cent. of the population voted and in which 97 per cent. of those voting voted in favour of the Strood Rural District Council's proposals. There was also a very sensible opinion poll taken in the Strood urban area, which confirmed the feeling of the people locally that they wished to take their place alongside the rural district area.
All the way through the guidelines, the point has been made by the Government and by others that consideration should be given to local feeling, and here we


have a referendum and an opinion poll which underline that local feeling. But it was dismissed in the Boundary Commission's Report No. 1, paragraph 18, on page 147, and it was not mentioned at all in paragraph 21, which included a summing up of the local meeting on 5th September last in Rochester under the chairmanship of Sir Edmund Compton Nor was it referred to by my right hon. Friend in his reply to me on 6th December.
I want my right hon. Friend now to consider the suggestion that the Government should look at the possibility of transferring the five parishes, Cobham, Higham, Luddesdown, Meopham and Shorne from District No. 2 to District No. 3. At least, this would preserve the present Strood rural district as it is now, albeit, perhaps, joined to Rochester. Such a concession would no doubt ease the ill-feeling and indignation that the Government have unfortunately brought upon their shoulders and show that they are not as inflexible as they would seem to be.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Peter Trew: The points that I want to mention briefly are procedural and arise from the fact that the Boundary Commission in its final recommendations affecting my constituency has departed from its draft proposals of April this year.
The original proposals provided that the whole of the Dartford rural district should be included in Kent District No. 1 based on Dartford, but the final recommendations provide that while the northern and predominantly urban part of the rural district should remain in District No. 1, the southern and predominantly rural part should go into District No. 9 based on Sevenoaks.
This change in recommendations has resulted in two problems which are reflected in the two amendments standing in my name on the Order Paper which you, Mr. Speaker, in your wisdom have decided not to call. Had the original proposal been the same as the final recommendation, the parishes concerned could have made representations to the Boundary Commission on the problems arising; but, in view of the way that the order is being handled, they will have no such opportunity.
There have been a number of criticisms in the debate about the way in which this matter has been handled. I suggest that it might have been better to have separated all the districts in which there were no changes from the original proposals and to having put them into one order and to have put into another order all those districts where the final recommendations differed from the initial proposals so that fresh problems arising could have been considered at greater leisure.
The first of the two problems which I have mentioned concerns the parish of Sutton-at-Hone which, in the Commission's final recommendation, finds itself included in District No. 1 based on Dartford and separated from nine other parishes which have gone into District No. 9 based on Sevenoaks. The parish council of Sutton-at-Hone believes that it would be better for it to be included in the more rural District No. 9 than in the predominantly urban District No. 1. I do not wish to go into whether it is right or wrong in that belief. However, the fact that the parish council would like to be in another district is in itself a matter which merits consideration by the Boundary Commission.
The second problem concerns the residential area of New Barn which, as a result of the Commission's final recommendation, now finds itself split amongst three new local authority districts. New Barn is a comparatively small residential area, 310 acres in extent, with a population of about 3,000, and surrounded by green belt. It makes no sense at all for a comparatively small residential area to fall into three local authority districts.
I am encouraged to see in paragraph 5 of the guidelines for the Local Government Boundary Commission the sentence:
Once the new authorities have taken over, the Commission will be invited to carry out a thorough review of proposals for detailed adjustment of boundaries, including those of the counties and metropolitan districts.
I believe that the problems to which I have referred, which arise on the boundary of a new district which has come into being as a result of the Boundary Commission's final recommendations, would come within the scope of that paragraph in the guidelines. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give me a firm


assurance that the two boundary problems that I have mentioned can legitimately come within the scope of that guideline, that it will be able to hear representations from the parish councils concerned, and, indeed, any others who wish to make representations on similar problems, and that, if necessary, it will be able to take appropriate action.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: I cannot conceive of a subject less likely to produce a festive atmosphere in my part of the world than this Local Government Act and the subsequent orders. For once in a while I heartily agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) who severely criticised the disgraceful timing of this order and its tabling both last night and tonight. I accept that it is a bad argument that hon. Members are unable to be present. Nevertheless, this vastly important subject which covers every constituency in England deserves to be debated at a time when hon. Members have not made previous arrangements in their constituencies and in their private lives.
If I were to examine at length the history of the Act I should take too much time in this curtailed debate, but the fact remains that at all times when there has been any opposition to it the Government business managers have seen fit to push this legislation through either at the end of the Session or in the middle of the night, and not only in this House, but also in another place. I am in no way proud of what my party has done and the way that it has got this legislation through the House. In case hon. Gentlemen opposite derive any satisfaction from that and take a certain pleasure in seeing us squirm under the embarrassment of what has happened let me point out that apart from the Whip on duty only one other hon. Member of the Labour Party has seen fit to be present at this moment for this important debate.
There can be no doubt that the voice of the people in my constituency has been totally ignored and I cannot support an order which confirms that and puts into practice some of the Act's recommendations. The Boundary Commission

examined matters in my constituency but so far as I know it had no consultation with the local authorities on the ground, and certainly not with me. I have read the Commission's Report No. 1 and I find no mention, certainly in my counties—and I shall have two under this Act—of any notice being taken of Members of Parliament and their recommendations. I can honestly say that the total sum of my own achievements in fighting for my constituents, 70 per cent. of whom oppose the Act, is that one uninhabited rock in the Bristol Channel that was mistakenly put into Bristol has been returned to its own home.
As I am unable to support the order I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend would say what would be the consequence of withdrawing it and laying it again in an amended form, taking into account the points made by many of my hon. Friends in relation to their own constituencies. I appreciate that there is a tight timetable and that withdrawing the order would have disastrous consequences, but perhaps my right hon. Friend could spell out what they would be.
I must make the point that to raise false hopes among people who think that this debate is going to change anything is wrong, because clearly we cannot amend the order. We must either reject or accept it as it is.
I understand the feelings of my right hon. Friend when he reminds the House of the gerrymandering of the constituency boundaries by the previous Government and says that he has adopted a policy of accepting without alteration the Boundary Commission's report. But is that the right and proper thing to do? Does not the House have the power to make representations? Do not we, as supporters of the Government, have a right to be listened to over this matter? I believe that we do, and I further believe that we have been ignored.
I have two constituency points to raise. The first concerns the famous split parishes on the Mendips. I understand that the law of the land, the Act, lays down where this boundary shall be drawn, subject to another order which the House will have the opportunity to debate. Perhaps it could be confirmed that it will be


debatable. There will be another order to define the precise line.
There may be the possibility of my right hon. Friend taking consultations in my part of the world. Nevertheless, Axbridge rural district has made representations to his Department and pointed out that for the parish of Burrington the administrative centre would be more than seven miles away. In the parish of Blagdon the number of electors affected would be larger and the administrative centre a similar distance away. These are in hilly areas which are inaccessible in bad winter weather. The famous Rock of Ages cleft, where Toplady wrote that famous hymn, will now be split from the church which was his at Burrington Coombe. These matters may sound small but they go deep into our countryside, and rightly so.
On the subject of the split parishes, the previous Secretary of State wrote to me, in a letter publicised at the time, making it clear that the Boundary Commission would as a matter of priority examine the county boundary between Somerset and Avon through these split parishes. I think that I am right in saying that the Boundary Commission cannot do this until the Act comes into effect in 1974. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend would spell this out and confirm that the priority in my right hon. Friend's letter is maintained. These split parishes should go into one county or the other. We should get rid of this ridiculous arrangement which exists at present.
On the question of Avon District No. 4. I am not over-critical of the present situation because the members of the local authorities concerned have worked together for a considerable time to create an entity. But the House will realise the traumatic experience of local government in my part of the world and the lack of faith of my electors and constituents in the present set-up. It will be disastrous if this new district authority did not have some stability. Therefore, I wrote to Sir Edmund Compton. I commend him for the very prompt way in which he responded to my letters. I asked him if he could give any guarantee that his recommendations in the matter would last for at least 10 years. That is a reasonable request. But he is not in a position to give any such statement

in return. Indeed, the Government may say that they are unable to do so. But at least the Government can say that they will not review these matters in five years' time—assuming that they are still in power, as they will be.
Of the top 10 to 15 local authorities in terms of population and electorate, I find this rural area, in which the largest town is Weston-super-Mare, growing at an unprecedented rate and likely to be surely within the top 10 or so in a period of 10 years. Currently we have a population of 139,000 and an electorate of 102,000. It could easily be split into Axbridge and Weston, with a 74,000 population and 55,000 electorate, and the other three authorities, with a 65,000 population and a 47,000 electorate.
I make this point because I am no great believer in size for the sake of size. As I understand the way that the Act has been thought out, there is nothing to commend size from the point of view of functions or efficiency at district level. I hope that my right hon. Friend will say that he can foresee some period of stability now at district level in the new County of Avon. Assuming that we pass the order, the Minister has the power under the Act to ask the Boundary Commission to look at all these matters, at his complete discretion. On a request from the local authority, the district boundaries can also be examined.
I hope that we shall have an assurance that my right hon. Friend is not closing his mind to investigations of the points made by some of my hon. Friends as well as mine. The Minister has powers to do this and I hope sincerely that he will tell us that lie will use them.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: I apologise for the sound of my voice. Normally I am not accused of speaking softly. but I am not in the best of "nick" tonight.
I should like to know whether the Minister of State is happy with the way in which we are debating a matter of such fundamental importance on what I regard as an awkward day and at a very awkward hour. I certainly am not happy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) is a good watchdog on matters affecting principles of democracy and has quite a strong


bite. He has already been mentioned as complaining about this order. He and I have been joined by the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Soref) in putting down an amendment. We have waited quite a while to debate this subject, and we think that the principles of democracy have not been followed. When we had the local government proposals for the metropolitan districts we were able to debate them on the Floor of the House at some length, and in Committee. More important, we were able to amend those proposals. Paragraph 8 of the famous White Paper laid down the essential ingredients for local government reorganisation, namely that the grouping should have that essential community of interest.
I did not serve on the Committee, but my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) was able to get a Christmas box for my constituents in Skelmersdale and Holland. Almost 12 months ago to the day we were able to get the first amendment to the Bill. Previously people had said that to get the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Local Government and Development to listen to sensible arguments was like trying to get blood out of a stone. However, the Christmas spirit came upon him and he was convinced by the logic of the argument of my hon. Friend, who naturally used my brilliant arguments on Second Reading why Skelmersdale and Holland should not be part of the St. Helen's District 11 (c) in the metropolitan county of Liverpool. Skelmersdale and Holland were taken out of the district because there was no community of interest between them.
Democracy is not served by this kind of exercise. We cannot amend this order. We cannot debate it as fully as we were able to debate the metropolitan counties. It seems to me that once the decision has been made, that is that. This is fundamentally bad. Governments are far too fond of this kind of exercise. Nothing would have been lost if we had been given the same opportunity to debate the non-metropolitan districts.
We know that our amendments cannot be accepted. The purpose of the amendment in the names of myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton and the hon. Member for Ormskirk is to make

a separate district out of Skelsmersdale and Holland. There is no community of interest. The hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) probably knows the area as well as any hon. Member, along with the right hon. Gentleman, some of whose constituency I think is mentioned in the grouping. They both know that that essential ingredient of community of interest does not exist. The exercise is therefore pointless. I believe that it will destroy the viability of the group.
The officers have already met to try to get some understanding in the new district. With Skelmersdale and Holland being included at the last minute, they have not had as much opportunity to get together as they would have liked, certainly not as much as the metropolitan district. Skelmersdale and Holland does not consider itself in any way superior, but it and the other parts of the grouping feel that it has too many problems of its own, being a new town, and that its population, which is bound to grow in the next decade to at least 85,000, and possibly more, will be such as to dominate much smaller grouped communities.
Although it is happy to escape the clutches of the Merseyside Metropolitan District 11(c), a strong case has been made for it to be a district on its own, in what is almost its own right. Unfortunately, it was not listened to. The case can still be made that it would be much better on its own. It would not be necessary to do much more than to add other close communities with a better community of interest to reach approximately the present figure with the Skelmersdale population as it is.
What chance is there of remedying what I consider to have been a big mistake? Skelmersdale and Holland will undoubtedly grow. It is a new town, designed for that. We are trying to push in industry as fast as we can and to build the houses. It will be almost a monolith among smaller authorities, mainly rural or semi-rural.
On those grounds, even though it is a forlorn hope, I ask the Minister to give us an assurance that there is a possibility of altering the grouping, and that Skelmersdale and Holland shall be allowed to be a district on its own, in what is almost


the old Lancashire County Council setup. There are already in the county setups many districts which will be much smaller than the new Skelmersdale target figure of 80,000-85,000 in about a decade. I believe that it will be a viable unit, able to deal with its own special problems, and that the other districts can find a smaller grouping perhaps. They will have that necessary community of interest. In that way we shall have a much better arrangement for local democracy and local government.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. John Cordle: My right hon. Friend the Minister has paid tribute to the Boundary Commissioners, and no doubt there has been a great deal of satisfaction at their work throughout most of the country. But, although Christchurch was very satisfied with the outcome of their work, the Bournemouth Borough Council wishes me to register its entire dissatisfaction with the outcome, particularly in respect of the boundary line drawn between Bournemouth and Christchurch.
It is stated that the Boundary Commissioners paid various visits to the area. If they had done I am sure they would have recognised the difference between these areas and paid some account to the boundary line affecting the Hurn area. It is here that the bone of contention lies.
The Boundary Commission was clearly given too little time to complete a work of such great importance. In Bournemouth it seems that the convenience of the Government outweighed all other considerations so that the best interests of the people were sacrificed to the expediency of the moment.
The published report takes no account of the existing situation as clearly set out in Bournemouth's written submissions. The submissions have been made constantly during the past 18 months by the Chief Executive, Mr. John Bowen. I have been amazed to find that my constituency, as the major authority in the eastern area of the county, was not allowed to make personal representations to the commission on matters which Bournemouth had sought to include in its new district area.
A hearing on one issue affecting the new district was arranged in the area but the county borough was not only refused

the opportunity to give evidence but was not even allowed to send an observer. The imposition of these district boundaries follows closely on the eastern county boundary which was based on political opportunism and will serve to perpetrate an illogical and impractical system of local government in this conurbation.
For many years the conurbation in and around Bournemouth, with a population of over 350,000, has been divided between two economic planning areas, two counties and a county borough, making three planning authorities and eight boroughs and districts. Boundaries—which in built-up areas can be identified only by long-term residents—even divide houses and streets and require special arrangements for refuse collection, sewage, street lighting and so on. It seems incredible that every one of these boundaries now has to be preserved so that artificial divisions of single communities will remain for years to come.
As for the parish of Hurn, Bournemouth Borough Council sought to ensure that the special position of this parish was brought to the knowledge of the Commission by the Department of the Environment. The county borough took the initiative in ensuring that when Bournemouth-Hurn airport was to be sold by the then Board of Trade, the airport would be brought within democratic community control rather than being operated commercially for profit, despite the probable cost in rate aid for losses incurred. Neither Hampshire nor any of its districts was concerned to join in that purchase, but Bournemouth now has to expect that the rate income and planning control of this airport must pass to Christchurch—that is to the only council in the new county area which has no contribution to airport deficiencies and which is unaffected by flight paths and environmental considerations.
It can hardly be argued that the 381 people resident in the Hurn parish had any bearing on the population of the new Christchurch district which has been given independent existence despite a total population of only 33,462. For the next five years at least the people of this area must suffer from the imposition of a system in which logic appears to have played no part. In Bournemouth the present arrangements are regarded as an


abysmal failure to grasp a unique opportunity for better local government. I ask my right hon. Friend to take a further look and make it possible for the Boundary Commissioners to re-examine the boundary line between Christchurch and Bournemouth.

10.44 p.m.

Mr. Peter Rees: My intervention relates to the five Minster parishes. For those hon. Members who are unfamiliar with East Kent, these are the five parishes which are in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) but which lie in the Eastry Rural District Council, the greater part of which lies in my constituency. Their names roll impressively off the tongue—Acol, Minster, Monkton, St. Nicholas at Wade and Sarre. If the plan is carried into effect it will involve their transfer, and I use the word advisedly although inaccurately, from new District No. 7 of Kent to new District No. 8. The former district will, I expect, be called the Greater Dover District and the latter will be that of the Isle of Thanet.
The basis of the Boundary Commission's change of heart—because its original proposal was that these five parishes should follow Eastry Rural District into new District No. 7—was in deference to the supposed views of the majority in the parish of Minster. Its main conclusion was that a sufficient geographical barrier was constituted by the river Stour to justify a minor split of a local authority area in this case. That is a ludicrous generalisation, for anyone who knows the river Stour, significant and historic though it may be, knows that it is not in any real sense a geographical boundary. The commission has by implication recognised that only in exceptional circumstances should a current local authority area be split.
What the commission has totally failed to recognise is that these are five agricultural, rural parishes which feel that their interest would best be served by remaining with the rest of the Eastry Rural District in the new District No. 7, which will be, if not in numbers at least in area, a predominantly rural second-tier authority, rather than being cast into a new second-tier authority, District No. 8, which will be predominantly urban or

seaside. I say that with no disrespect to the new District No. 8, but it will be different in character from the Eastry Rural District from which these five parishes will be snatched.
The views of the inhabitants of the five parishes were canvassed. Four parishes —Acol, Monkton, St. Nicholas at Wade and Sarre—held parish council meetings or parish meetings. There was a surprisingly high turnout of 75 per cent., and 90 per cent. of the people at those meetings voted to remain with the rest of Eastry Rural District in District No. 7. The fifth parish of Minster, which I concede is the largest, held a meeting, but only at the requisition of those who were opposed to the proposal to move Minster into the Thanet district authority. Only 137 turned out, which was far less than 75 per cent., and 62 of those voted to remain with Eastry and 67 voted to go to Thanet. That is a very flimsy majority in just one parish to move five parishes from their natural home in District No. 7 to District No. 8.
I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that this was an afterthought of the Boundary Commission and a very bad afterthought. It would be optimistic of me to imagine that my hon. Friend will withdraw the order in deference to my speech tonight, but unless he gives me an assurance that the matter will be kept under review and accept that in 1973 or 1974 it may be possible to rectify this glaring error, I shall feel unable to support the order in the Division Lobby tonight.

10.48 p.m.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I entirely support everything that has been said by my hon. Friends and hon. and right hon. Members opposite who have expressed dismay, regret and even stronger emotions about the position of this debate in the parliamentary timetable. I should like to make clear one thing which has not so far been touched on, and that is that my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State were absolutely right to refuse to criticise the decisions of an independent Boundary Commission, or to attempt themselves to alter them. But there is no constitutional reason why those decisions could net have been amended by the House had the House been given an opportunity to do so and had this


debate taken a different form so that amendments were in order as they are not at present.
Indeed, it seems very difficult to justify that we are not to get that type of debate on the district boundaries when this House and another place were given an opportunity to amend county boundaries. It will seem to the district authorities, which have felt for some time that they are to be the secondary councils, although we have been telling them that they are to be parallel, that they have not been given the same importance in this House as have the county boundaries. Although I appreciate that we have been allowed, due to the discretion of Mr. Speaker, another one and a half hours in which to debate this matter, it is totally inadequate. The form of the debate is inadequate as we cannot table amendments because this is an order and not a bill. The situation has been somewhat exacerbated because last night had there been a Division there is no doubt that the Government would have been defeated.
I feel so very strongly in this case, naturally with relation to my own constituency and to the boundaries which have been recommended for the district councils for the city of Gloucester, because it seems to me that the Boundary Commission has completely ignored the recommendations of every rural council, every parish council, every town council, every city council, and even the county council of Gloucestershire and their appeals in its recommendations. It has also ignored the express wishes of the people.
It will certainly appear to the people that the commission in doing this has also ignored the dictates of sanity, has been looking merely at statistics and maps and not at all at people and places, and has ignored completely the guidelines set down with regard to remoteness, particularly in the case of Gloucestershire. For example, people who live in the parishes of Brockworth, Church-down, Minsterworth, Highnam and Hucclecote will have to travel through Gloucester, past the Guildhall, with a wistful look no doubt, past the Shire Hall, with a wistful look, and continue many miles at considerable expense to Tewkesbury to ask about their rent or rate rebates, to ask about their improvement grants or whatever it is they are worrying

about. In some cases they will be deterred from doing so because they will not be able to afford the cost of the journey.
Apart from that, their interest is in the city of Gloucester. Some are within two miles of it and others within four miles. In the case of Sandhurst, the original country lane which links Sandhurst and Gloucester is still in existence and the cattle market in Gloucester is used by all the farmers in these parishes, which are only a few miles outside the city. The amenities which the Ministry of Agriculture provides in the city are also used by them.
Again, the boundary as proposed does not reflect the natural and economic configurations of the catchment areas in this district. In the case of a small city like Gloucester, a mix of urban, semi-urban and rural communities is both economically and socially desirable. People who live near Gloucester identify with the city and enjoy its amenities, but they are to be denied representation on the council in the city of Gloucester, and the council itself is to be denied the revenue of their rates, although they enjoy all the city's amenities.
There is not even an argument for the proposed boundaries on the ground of size of the electorate, because the size of the electorate within the district boundary as proposed is 62,000, and if all the parishes were included in the city of Gloucester District Council, as proposed in the Number 6 District Scheme, the electorate would be 70,000, which is a good deal smaller than in many other district councils.
Then again, very often people are affected immeasurably more by decisions taken at local level on such matters as housing and education than they are by decisions taken in this House. Therefore they must feel that they are being represented in the area with which they identify with regard to the decisions which affect them most.
Although I regret very much that the timing of this debate has made it necessary, I have come here tonight from a dinner party at which I am the hostess in order to express my bitter opposition to this order and to say that I should not be representing my constituents if I did not, in the event of a Division, vote against it. Indeed, I should welcome the opportunity to do so.

10.55 p.m.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I want to express. first, the disappointment of the Royal Borough of New Windsor, which has always wanted to be separated from District No. 4 and re-grouped as a separate district with a population of approximately 65,000. There is the disappointment of the Windsor Rural District Council, which has been working for a long time under the misapprehension that the Boundary Commission proposals were final and not mere draft proposals. The effect of these final proposals is to put all my constituency back into District 4.
What are we to do now? As this is a statutory instrument and not amendable, I believe that the Government are right to persuade the new local authorities to work together in the framework which has been selected. Any alteration by the Government would savour of gerrymandering, as happened in 1950. If the order were taken back and had to be debated again, it would probably delay the 1973 elections.
My right hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear that in Berkshire we shall have priority of revision in 1974. I hope that he will say a further word about that.
After the elections in 1973, I believe that the councils and councillors of the new authorities, the organisations within the new authorities and the electors should make recommendations and that the Boundary Commission should listen to those recommendations. In the meantime it is essential that we give no false hope to any of the local authorities. It must be in the interests of all concerned —ratepayers and authorities—for people to forget the past, to work together. and to realise that these local authorities must be made a viable proposition.

10.58 p.m.

Mr. Brian Harrison: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not pay any attention to the suggestion that he should withdraw this order. I have had the strongest representations from the clerk of the council of Witham and from the two Maldon councils that the order should be accepted as it is printed. There have been strenuous negotiations and discussions with the Ministry, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will not accept

any of the blandishments from my hon. Friends to withdraw the order.

10.59 p.m.

Captain Walter Elliot: I cannot resist telling my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) that although she left an important dinner party to attend this debate, I left New York at four o'clock this morning to be here. If my argument lacks clarity as a result, I hope that my right hon. Friend will understand the importance that I attach to the matter.
I want to ask why it is that, since the original White Paper, the Government have gradually escalated the size of councils. Originally it looked hopeful for councils of the order of 40,000 to continue in existence. Gradually that firmed up to between 75,000 and 100,000. However, that number falls between two stools. It is not big enough to exercise powers other than those of a second-tier authority. At the same time, it is more remote than the smaller councils.
Great play was made in the White Paper about the wishes of the inhabitants. In Banstead, in a short time, 11,000 people signed a petition—and if there had been more time many more would have signed—against amalgamation with Reigate. But it was not unanimous. The Labour Party was against it. It was opposed because it has poor representation in the Banstead UDC and if Banstead amalgamated with Reigate it would probably have a bigger representation. I make no complaint about that, but it had nothing to do with the efficiency of local government.
One or two Conservative areas supported the amalgamation. But the reason they gave was that they thought it would give better protection against being swept into the Greater London Council if it expanded its boundaries. They may have sound arguments behind that reasoning, but they are nothing to do with the efficiency of local government.
Since I returned I have read that Lord Sandford in another place has put forward the argument that it is desirable to have large and powerful districts on the edge of London. Again, there may be arguments for that. However, I cannot see that that is anything to do with the efficiency of local government.
Banstead is a well-run district which is closely in touch with the ratepayers. It has harmonious relations with the upper tier, the county council, and it would be a disaster if the area were amalgamated. We were told by the previous Minister to write to the chairman of the Boundary Commission and to give our objections and our various reasons. I should have liked to have quoted my objections at length. However, I made the point that I hoped that he would be able to come to the area and have a look at it for himself, talk to the people and see how it works.
Banstead is an exception in the delineation or the topography of the area. If there is one area which, judging by the topography, should not be amalgamated with Banstead, it would be Reigate. The land drops deeply down several hundred feet and makes communications extremely difficult. I wrote and pointed that out to the chairman of the Boundary Commission. He replied, in a nice letter, saying that he had noted all my points. He said that he could not come to the area. I have represented the area for 12 years and unless one visits the area I do not understand how one can possibly assess whether the area should be amalgamated.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that the districts, as the White Paper suggests, are bound to vary considerably in size and resources. Of course, we do not want uniformity for its own sake. Banstead has practically all the powers proposed in the new setup and effectively exercises them. A mistake has been made and I am sure that it is within my right hon. Friend's power to put it right.

11.3 p.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): If I may have the leave of the House, I hope to answer as many as possible of the points which have been raised during the debate by right hon. and hon. Members. First, I am sure that the House will wish me to express its thanks to the Chair for adjourning the debate so that we have had this extra time in which to debate the order.
My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. William Clark) said

that there had been bureacratic arrogance. Let me clear up any misconception about the Boundary Commission. I can assure my hon. Friend that there was no such arrogance. It was not sitting in an ivory tower. Its work was based on proposals which were put to it by local authorities. That was the whole basis of its work. Its main job was to act as an arbitrator between conflicting interests which were put to it by various local authorities.

Mr. Peter Rees: rose—

Mr. Page: Not at this stage please. I have only a short time in which to try to answer many points.
In two cases put before the House we have heard both sides of the argument. In the case of Witham one side was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk) and the other side by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Brian Harrison). We have heard the two sides of the case for Morecambe and Lancaster. The case for Morecambe was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) and the case for retaining the Boundary Commission's district for Morecambe and Lancaster was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman). It was not the first time I have heard that case argued. I have had the pleasure of hearing both arguments before.
In regard to Morecambe, it is no argument for separation that the towns are of a different character whether in employment offered or in way of life, whether between resort and industry, or between town and country. In many of these cases in local government reform we seek to produce a more viable local government unit by the variety of interests which will be represented in one district.
Before the appointment of the commission—and I am going back to July 1971—my Department asked local authorities to submit proposals for the new district preparatory to a submission to the Boundary Commission. The county was the forum for collecting the voices of the districts—the existing local authorities—on the proposals to be put forward. That is why in each case the Boundary Commission's report begins by referring to the proposals which it received from the


county. I am not saying these were unanimous among all the local authorities in the county, but in almost every case the counties endeavoured to put forward proposals agreed by the majority of local authorities in their areas. In certain cases individual authorities made it known that they did not agree with what had been proposed by the county and put forward different proposals to the commission. But by the time the commission was appointed, in November 1971, we could put before it a classified bundle of proposals from all over the country. It therefore got off to a flying start with that material, but it was dealing with proposals put forward by the local authorities concerned and not sitting in an ivory tower turning com-passes and drawing lines on maps, as was suggested by my drawing line. Friend the Member for Surrey, East.

Captain W. Elliott: Would my right hon. Friend be interested to hear that the Chairman of the Surrey County Council told me that the only reason he proposed that Banstead should amalgamate with Reigate was that the Government had stated that districts had to contain between 75,000 and 100,000 people?

Mr. Page: My hon. Friend will appreciate that if hon. Members interrupt on their own cases before I reach them, I shall not be able to answer all the points. I shall come to Banstead as quickly as I can.
I want to look at the basic authority for the setting up of the Boundary Commission. Section 46 of the Local Government Act 1972 said:
There shall be a Local Government Boundary Commission for England (in this Act referred to as the English Commission') who shall carry out the functions conferred on them by or under this Act.
The first two paragraphs of Schedule 3 of the Act said:
The English Commission shall as soon as practicable after the passing of this Act make proposals to the Secretary of State for the division of non-metropolitan counties into districts, for defining the areas of those districts and for naming them, and the Secretary of State may give the Commission directions for their guidance in making any such proposals.
The Secretary of State shall by order give effect to any proposals under this paragraph either as submitted by him or with modifications, but an order shall not be made under

this paragraph defining the areas of non-metropolitan districts unless a draft of the order has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.
That is what we are debating tonight.
The Commission went through the representations which were made to my Department before November 1971 and those made to it direct after November 1971, and by April 1972 it was able to produce its draft proposals. The right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) referred to the letter which was sent by the secretary to the commission and which accompanied those draft proposals. That letter asked for further comments, proposals and representations to be made on the draft proposals. In paragraph 15, it said:
The Commission Designate will review the draft proposals in the light of all the written representations received. They will then consider whether in certain cases further consultations with individual local authorities or groups of authorities are needed before they can reach a final recommendation".
Then, paragraph 16:
Any such meetings will be with representatives of local authorities, and the Commission Designate could not undertake to hear oral evidence from other organisations or members of the public".
Thus, again the commission was working with the local authorities and endeavouring to obtain representations through that democratic method.
Having appointed a statutory body of this kind, Parliament would wish the executive to leave it to decide whether it had sufficient information by written representation to reach a decision for recommendation to the Secretary of State or whether to arrange for the parties to be heard through some form of oral hearing. I do not think that any Minister could properly interfere in the procedure of a statutory body of this sort at that stage. We, therefore, left the commission to proceed with its job of deciding for itself whether the written representations were sufficient or whether further hearings should be arranged.
In the event, the commission did arrange a number of hearings throughout the country. One may perhaps think that in some case or other the commission would have been wiser to hear the parties. But there can be nothing improper in the commission deciding that it had sufficient information on which to come to a


decision without actually hearing the parties.
The right hon. Member for Devon, North spoke of what he described as the guide lines set down in that letter from the secretary to the commission. They are not guide lines in the sense of the guide lines laid down by the Secretary of State to the commission. They were a statement to those who might wish to submit representations to give them some indication of what the commission would require. Paragraph 18 of the letter said:
In general, the Commission Designate will find it difficult to consider suggestions for alternative areas unless the representations show that they are practicable alternatives which
(a) show a substantial measure of agreement among the local authorities concerned.
In the North Devon case which the right hon. Gentleman put, there was not that agreement: six authorities out of 10 disagreed with the proposition which he put to the House yesterday. The paragraph continued:
(b) are within (or close to) the preferred population range"—
—the 75,000 to 100,000—
(c) do not involve the division of existing county district areas;
(d) do not render invalid the pattern of New Districts elsewhere in the county.
Having asked for those representations the commission had about 28,000 put to it in the next few months. The commission certainly was not composed of superhuman beings cloistered in London, as the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) described them. The commission was carrying out the job which Parliament entrusted to it.
I want to draw attention to two paragraphs in the commission's report, because I hope to draw conclusions from them in dealing with the specific cases which have been put to the House.
The commission, in paragraph 46, states:
At this stage we have been concerned with establishing the general structure of the new district pattern. Within this general structure there will need to be detailed boundary adjustments at a later stage. The Commission's task is a continuing one, but it is one that has to be tackled in stages.
In paragraph 55, it states:
the guidelines state that 'Once the new authorities have taken over, the Commission

will be invited to carry out a thorough review of proposals for detailed adjustments of boundaries, including those of the counties and metropolitan districts We are conscious of the need for such a review, and would wish to include in it a review of the boundaries of new districts".
I assure my hon. Friends that there will be a review of the boundaries. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State proposes to invite the commission to review certain cases as a matter of priority. Of course, the commission is a statutory body and can make up its own mind, but I should think that it would read carefully the debate we have had on the order and note the cases to which priority ought to be given.
Before the debate we had undertaken to deal with two cases in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) referred to the Mendip parishes. We shall certainly ask the commission to give priority to a review of that line. There will be an order fixing that line for a period—that order will come before the House shortly—but after 1st April 1974 we shall ask the commission to look at that boundary.
We shall also ask the commission to treat with priority the case, put forward by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson), of Scunthorpe and the Anchor steelworks. The commission itself, in its report, suggests that that should be reviewed.
In the course of the debate powerful speeches by hon. Members on both sides of the House have satisfied me that there are prima facie cases for similar treatment. I know that what I say now will not wholly satisfy them. I am sure that they will say, "If this can be done in 1974, why cannot it be done now?" However, I do not accept that they are completely right. I refer again to cases such as Witham and Morecambe. We have heard the two sides of the argument in those cases. But in many other cases we have heard only one side. However, in many of the cases where we have heard only one side I believe that a prima facie case has been put for consideration by the commission. I undertake that we will ask the commission to review the boundaries in those cases as soon as practicable after 1st April 1974.
For example, I think the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim)


concerning the area between Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Cheltenham needs review, as does that put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Trew) about the parishes of Sutton-at-Hone and New Barn, and that put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) relating to the four Eastry parishes. I say four advisedly, because I understand that Minster does not want to be included. However, it may be that all five ought to be looked at. There is also the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) so far as it relates to the boundary at Hurn. I could not encourage him over the whole boundary between Bournemouth and Christchurch, but I think that the Hurn boundary might be reviewed at a very early stage by the commission.
We have what I might, with irreverence, call the freak case of Horley, but this is the alteration of a county boundary. Through my hon. Friend's great skill in argument throughout the stages of the Bill, and through my generosity perhaps, I gave an undertaking which, with the passage of the Bill, I have not been able to carry out—not fully, anyway —but I assure my hon. Friend that I shall carry it out. There will be an alteration in the county boundary as Horley wishes, because that was the undertaking that we gave. It may be that Horley will have to reside for an hour or two, or some very short period, in one county and then move back into the other. I am sorry about this Gilbertian situation, but that is how it has worked out.
The other points have all dealt with the structure of the districts rather than with the boundaries. Let me come back to the case put by the right hon. Member for Devon, North. In that case six out of 10 local authorities preferred to split into two districts. The Boundary Commission considered them very carefully and gave its report on the structure of North Devon. This is not a boundary matter. It is not one which I could ask the commission to review at an early stage, but any local authority in a new district can ask the commission to re-examine its decision. This comes under the Act itself. All I am saying is that

in these cases the Government would not take the initiative in asking the commission to take any steps.
That applies also to the cases of Witham and Morecambe, and to the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) about Barrow-upon-Soar. This is a difficult case. It is a very large district, and I appreciate that there are problems there, but if it were split it would leave Loughborough and Shepshed as a district that was not viable, and I hope that Barrow-upon-Soar, Loughborough and Shepshed will be able to settle down together as a varied and valuable district. It is not an easy district, but it is one that will be of great interest to administer.
My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East put the case of Banstead, as did my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot). In this case the commission specifically says that it looked at this twice—both on its broad proposals and before it made its final proposals—and took cognisance of the feelings of local people. There is not in this case unanimity between Reigate and Banstead, the two areas that are put together. Reigate is happy with the situation, but Banstead wishes to be on its own. I cannot hold out any hope that the Government can take any initiative in this case.
The same applies to the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather). He wishes to have three districts where there are two at present. The commission studied the matter carefully. Rather surprisingly, to my mind, it did not have a further inquiry before making its final report, but it was satisfied by the representations that it received. To a great extent the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher is a very strong one from the point of view of the wishes of the district, but not a strong one from the point of view of having a viable local government unit.
I have dealt with part of the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Marc—the Mendip parishes. I cannot hold out any hope to him that we can assist at this stage in forming another district in the area of Axbridge, Clevedon and Portishead, about which he was speaking.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Roger White) has had his go once, and I have answered him. He would not expect me to answer again after the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill.
I have only one more point with which to deal, and that is Skelmersdale. This gives me the greatest difficulty. Looking at the guidelines we gave to the commission concerning new towns and the expected growth of population in new towns, I find the decision reached by the commission perhaps a little surprising. However, it is defensible on the ground that if we make Skelmersdale a separate district at present, it is a district with a population of something under 40,000, and it does not come within our other guidelines that small districts of that sort should be covering a sparse population over a wide area.
But there is no doubt that Skelmersdale will grow, although at present it would be wrong to make it a separate district. We are talking of an area which is a new town corporation and an urban district, and I foresee that if Skelmersdale in 1974 has grown to the size to which we rather hope that it will have grown in that short period, there would then be a case for it to say to the Boundary Commission, "We are a large enough district and a closely knit district. We are a new town coming within the guidelines." I therefore put Skelmersdale at a little higher rank than the others I have mentioned.
I hope that I have covered all the points. I hope that I have not gone too far in the promises I may have given tonight. I am always dubious about the words I utter to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair). I hope that he will not read too much into it when I say that I am trying to carry out my undertaking in his case.
In view of assurances I can give about the review of boundaries and in view of the structure of the Act concerning the review of districts, I ask the House to accept the order.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd November be approved.

NORTHERN IRELAND (WATER AND SEWERAGE SERVICES)

11.28 p.m.

The Minister of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. William van Straubenzee): I beg to move,
That the Water and Sewerage Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 21st November, be approved.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. I hope that hon. Members will leave the Chamber quietly.
Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House at this stage to say that I think that it would be acceptable to discuss the two Northern Ireland orders together. The second order is the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order.

Mr. van Straubenzee: I shall attempt to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Although these are naturally important matters and they cover wide matters of policy, nevertheless, particularly as they could be said to be non-contentious, I should not be discourteous to the House if I dealt with them fairly shortly. If I am allowed to do so, I shall do my best to answer questions later.
The draft Water and Sewerage Services Order is another in the series arising from the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland and it will make the Ministry of Development directly responsible for the provision of water and sewerage services throughout Northern Ireland. It also consolidates and revises the law on the provision of services.
There are 79 local authorities which have responsibility for these services in Northern Ireland. They vary widely in size and this fragmentation of responsibility, it is widely agreed, has been a major obstacle to the efficient and economic provision of water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland. Therefore, if the House approves the order, the Ministry of Development will be responsible for four major aspects for water management—water conservation, pollution, control, and provision of water and of sewerage services. The House will recognise the close parallel with the Government proposals to create regional water authorities in England and Wales.
Part II of the order places on the Ministry of Development the responsibility to


provide water and sewerage services. Article 5 requires the Ministry to consult with the new district councils. Article 6 extends the role of the Northern Ireland Water Council to advising the Ministry on the exercise of its functions for water and sewerage services. Articles 7 and 8 and Schedules 1 and 2 deal with appeals, objections and hearings under this order and under the Water Act (Northern Ireland) 1972. They provide for the appointment by the Governor of Northern Ireland of a new body, the Northern Ireland Water Appeals Commission.
The important Article 8 makes it clear that the final decisions on these matters remain with the Government, as is the case in Great Britain.
Since, as is the case here, legislation dates from a long time ago, the opportunity has been taken to consolidate. Part III of the order deals with the acquisition of land and waiter rights and with the execution of works. Part IV sets out the rights and duties of owners and occupiers. Part V introduces, for the first time in Northern Ireland, comprehensive controls over the discharge of trade effluents to public sewers and sewage disposal works. These provisions are based on current legislation in Great Britain.
In 1945, only 55 per cent. of households in Northern Ireland had a piped water supply and an even smaller percentage were connected to a public sewerage system. Today, over 90 per cent. of the population live in property with a piped water supply and between 85 and 90 per cent. in property connected to the public sewers.
This progress has been achieved at the cost of some £80 million on new capital works since 1945. About half of this money has been in the form of Government grants to local authorities. I would pay a warm tribute to the work which the existing local water and sewerage authorities have done over the years in Northern Ireland.
However, we have now the opportunity to reorganise services on a regional basis as part of a completely new structure for local and central services in Northern Ireland, and it is in that spirit that I am moving this order.
It has already been indicated that it would be convenient to, and it was accepted that we should, also now deal with the draft Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order which also stems from the reorganisation of local government. It has been decided that in this case the Ministry of Agriculture, the existing drainage authority for rivers, major and minor, should take over the functions now exercised by local authorities in relation to urban water courses. Accordingly the principal purpose of this order is to make the necessary changes to the existing drainage legislative code, and once again, as with its predecessor, opportunity has been taken for consolidation.
It is true that the review body, commonly known as the Macrory Report, recommended that urban drainage should be the responsibility of the new local district councils, but the new councils will have neither the professional staff nor the finances to undertake such works. Furthermore, in Northern Ireland and, for all I know, elsewhere, the distinction between urban watercourses and rural watercourses is not always as clear and obvious as one might wish, and therefore this order transfers complete responsibility for urban drainage to the Ministry of Agriculture and abolishes the distinction between urban and rural watercourses.
Even at a late hour I ought to draw attention to Article 8, which is new. It is of particular importance in towns and cities. It permits the Ministry of Agriculture to carry out emergency works to all types of watercourses. The situation at present is that neither the Ministry of Agriculture nor the local authorities have authority to undertake emergency works when there is a threat of flooding without going through a very lengthy procedure, and this is of particular concern in urban areas where homes and industrial premises can be affected by flooding. Therefore, this order provides additional safeguards to deal quickly with flooding both to urban property and farmland.
A further change is necessitated by the reorganisation of local government, and this concerns the constitution of the Drainage Council for Northern Ireland. The House will see the details set out in Schedule 1.
Finally, I wish to draw attention to the new provisions which concern navigation on Lough Erne and its tributaries. This is found in Schedule 7. The House will know that the lough is situated in County Fermanagh, covering some 58 square miles. There is at present a public right of navigation on the lough, but maintenance of the navigation is not the responsibility of any public body. However, various navigation works have been undertaken by the Fermanagh County Council under tourist development schemes with the actual work being carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture as agents for the county council. Paragraph 12 of Schedule 7 makes the Ministry of Agriculture solely responsible for navigation works on Upper and Lower Lough Erne, the River Erne, and the tributary rivers, including the dredging and maintenance of channels and the provision and maintenance of navigation aids.
Paragraph 13 empowers the Ministry to make bye-laws to regulate the use of the loughs and their tributaries, and these regulations may cover, for example, the size of the boat and the nature of safety equipment which the boat must carry. In the exercise of this responsibility there will be close consultation by the Ministry with the relevant district councils, other local interests and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. I hope it will be felt that these provisions together ensure that future tourist development is managed for the benefit of both local and tourist interests, and safe navigation is provided to meet the increased number of craft.
I hope in respect of the second order, therefore, that I have explained the main provisions, and that I have been able to show that the other amendments to existing legislation are of a minor or consequential nature and that the overall purpose is to ensure that the drainage work throughout Northern Ireland is carried out under the overall authority of the Ministry of Agriculture.
I commend both orders to the House.

11.40 p.m.

Mr. Stanley Orme: The Minister has explained the main provisions of the orders succinctly, and we do not complain about not having a long

debate. But I should draw attention to the fact that they are the 25th and 26th pieces of legislation to come before the House under the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act. In addition, more than a dozen orders have gone through under the negative procedure. As they are statutory instruments it is not possible to amend them. We are therefore having legislation by decree, which is not a satisfactory way of dealing with the issues concerned. It tends to give too much power to civil servants, because the legislation they draft is not debated in the House.
The debate in another place on the Water and Sewerage Services Order took exactly three minutes. This reminds us of the way in which Stormont operated on a number of occasions, meeting in the afternoon and finishing before teatime. In view of some of the earlier debates today, it cannot be said that this House operates in that way, and we do not want it to do so.
The sooner we can have legislation in a proper form, preferably dealt with in Northern Ireland, where it can be dealt with much more democratically, the better it will be for both Northern Ireland and this House. Hardly a day passes without our hearing a statement on Northern Ireland or dealing with a statutory instrument affecting it. The number of such statements and statutory instruments is increasing, because of the very nature of many of the issues.
The proposals on water and sewerage parallel the proposed reorganisation of water and sewerage services for England and Wales. What we might call the geographical approach has been supported by the Central Advisory Water Committee, the Royal Commission on the Environment and the Labour Party's own Working Party on sewage disposal. Therefore, we are naturally not opposed to the order. We want to see complete public ownership of the water supply, because that is necessary.
The details are left to be covered by regulations. Therefore it is an open question whether domestic consumers in Northern Ireland will be metered. I must express the opposition of my side of the House to any such idea. It would be very expensive administratively. The Department of the Environment estimates


that installation would cost about £500 million in England and Wales, and there would be an annual cost of about £15 million for repair and replacement. I should therefore like an assurance from the Minister that metering is not contemplated.
I note the points made on Article 5. Article 6 does not make clear the size of the council which will be elected but merely states that it shall not exceed 15. It does not make clear what will be the composition of the council or what interests will be represented. If the Minister is not able to give an immediate reply perhaps he will consider the points and write to me.
The drainage order has been debated in another place and Lord Garnsworthy made an excellent speech raising many detailed points. Because of the relationship of Northern Ireland to the Republic there is bound to be some form of cooperation. This vital matter is raised in Article 30.
Co-operation with the Republic, whether over tourism, economic development or drainage, can do nothing but good. We all hope that there will be an easier political atmosphere which will assist this. Lord Windlesham spoke of the opportunities for co-operation with the Republic. We support such developments. Lough Neagh and the Lower Bann are not included in the order. Can we expect any legislation covering these important water supply and drainage areas?
The Opposition do not see any reason why these orders should not be passed. It might seem odd that on the day after five brutal murders took place in a Londonderry public house we should be discussing drainage and sewerage in Northern Ireland. It seems far removed from the terrible reality. We support any measure which leads to political normalisation in the Six Counties. Only urgent political measures by the Government can help. The recent killings are fresh in our memories. We have no alternative but to pursue the issues in Northern Ireland in a logical and commonsense manner—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. The hon. Member is going beyond the orders.

Mr. Orme: I understand that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not contradict your ruling. I am merely saying in conclusion that it would be idiotic for us to discuss the orders in isolation from the realities in Northern Ireland. The orders are related to the political realities in that war-torn Province. On that basis we welcome the orders, but at the same time press the Government on the major political solutions which we hope they will put forward in the near future.

11.50 p.m.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Perhaps I may, without discourtesy to the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) deal with the four perfectly proper and penetrating technical questions he has asked me. He will forgive me if I do not follow him into the wider matters. As one who will be spending the Christmas break in Northern Ireland, I am not unaware of the broader questions, on which there is considerable agreement on both sides of the House.
On the order relating to water, the hon. Gentleman raised the question of metering. There is no present intention to introduce metering for domestic consumers, at any rate not in the foreseeable future.
The council was created under the 1972 Act to advise the Ministries of Agriculture and Development. The intention is that the 15 members of the council should reflect the many interests concerned in the water industry—to name a few, agriculture, fisheries, public health, tourism and recreation— and include locally elected representatives of the general public. The hon. Gentleman will know the timetable.
On the order relating to drainage, the hon. Gentleman mentioned Article 30. He will recall that, although necessarily my remarks were short, I made reference to Lough Erne, where there is cooperation. In the past there has been close co-operation and a cordial relationship between the Ministry of Agriculture in Northern Ireland and the Board of Public Works in the Republic of Ireland, which is responsible for drainage south of the border. Several rivers flow across the border, and the hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in saying that reciprocal arrangements are essential. It is in these practical matters that one would like to


see increasing co-operation between the two parts of Ireland.
The hon. Gentleman will know that only on 22nd November was the Lough Neagh working group's report presented to the Government. The group was asked to advise on how the water resources of Lough Neagh and the lower river basin could be managed to the best advantage of Northern Ireland. That report is now a matter for study by the Ministries concerned. A copy of the report has been placed in the Library. As the report has so recently been presented, it is not unreasonable to allow opportunity for further study.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Water and Sewerage Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 21st November, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 28th November, be approved.—[Mr. van Straubenzee]

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY SECONDARY LEGISLATION

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [18th December]:
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider procedures for scrutiny of proposals for European Community Secondary Legislation and to make recommendations.—[Mr. Murton.]

Question again proposed.

11.55 p.m.

Mr. Richard Body: When the debate was adjourned I was in the process of putting a number of questions to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House as to the effect this Select Committee would have. In the first place, I draw his attention to the report of the Select Committee on Procedure and to the anxieties which it expressed as to how powerful any such Committee as this could be.
There is a distinction between regulations and directives, which are obviously binding and, therefore, can be deemed secondary legislation, and recommendations and opinions, which are not binding and, therefore, cannot be called secondary

legislation. What shall we in this House be able to do about recommendations and opinions? Shall we have any opportunity of discussing them on the Floor of the House? We shall have no opportunity elsewhere. There will be no Select Committee, no body of any kind, with the power to examine recommendations and opinions, either in their final form or in their draft form. If we have not that power, it is some diminution of what powers we have now.
All the member States of the Community at present have Parliaments with specialist committees on agriculture, trade and all the other subjects that are legislated on by the Commission—that is to say, those subjects upon which there may be regulations or directives have corresponding specialist committees in all the assemblies of the present member States. Those specialist committees have the power to summon before them the Ministers responsible before they attend the Council of Ministers, with the result that those Ministers, before they set off to Brussels to legislate, know exactly what is in the minds of their respective Parliaments and, indeed, have had their marching orders. Moreover, once the Council of Ministers has met, those same Ministers have to return and report back to their specialist committees.
We have no corresponding committee so far. Are we going to have one? Is there any proposal whereby this House may have corresponding specialist committees no less than those of the other member States and able to exercise some control over the Executive and our own representatives and to influence their views and actions once they are in Brussels?
These are the two principal matters I put to my right hon. Friend. I hope that he has given thought to them and that we shall have some answers from him about both.

11.59 p.m.

Mr. Peter Shore: I would not disagree with anything said by the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) so far, except, of course, to say that the questions he has put are among those which the proposed Select Committee, if its terms of reference are wide enough, could properly consider and that it is precisely the question of the


width of the terms of reference that we should be concerned with now.
The reason why this Select Committee has been called into existence is that we face a quite unprecedented situation. We are contemplating, as we approach 1st January, a situation in which laws, policies and taxes will be made and imposed upon us by agencies outside this country which are not responsible to this Parliament. The task of the Select Committee is to find ways, if possible, of making the Ministers taking part in the institutions of the European Community responsible to this House. We want to know whether we can get at them before they take part in the law-making procedures in the Council of Ministers and elsewhere. Once regulations are issued, they have effect without any further parliamentary scrutiny here. The matter is of the utmost importance and consequence. We should not have any doubt about that.
Let me remind the Leader of the House what the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said when he was piloting the European Communities Bill through this House. He made a number of references to the proposal for an ad hoc committee to look at our procedures. The first reference that he made was on 15th February, in the Second Reading debate. He said, and I hope that he meant it:
The Government are deeply concerned that Parliament, as well as United Kingdom Ministers, should play its full part when future Community policies are being formulated, and in particular that Parliament should be informed about and have an opportunity to consider at the formative stage those Community instruments which, when made by the Council, will be binding in this country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February 1972; Vol. 831, c. 274.]
That was interpreted at the time and in the cross-examination of the right hon. and learned Gentleman which followed as referring in the main to regulations, the principal form of legislation of the Community.
However, on 7th March, when we had explored the capacity of the Communities to make ancillary treaties, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said:
As for the ad hoc committee, I said on Second Reading that the Government believed there was a need for the House to have special arrangements under which it would be apprised of draft regulations and directives,

and that the ad hoc committee would consider the most suitable arrangements. I did not specifically refer then to treaties, but clearly the committee would wish to consider the scope of parliamentary consideration in respect of treaties as in other matters."—[0FFICIAL REPORT, 7th March 1972; Vol. 832, c. 1397.]
The Chancellor of the Duchy was quite specific that he wished this ad hoccommittee to consider not only regulations and directives but also ancillary treaties. These are draft treaties, and I remind the Leader of the House that there are two kinds of treaty, one of which is made under article 114 of the Rome Treaty and under the European Communities Act does not require any statutory procedure in this House. Therefore, we must get at these treaties, as well as at those which require an act of approval in this House, before they are agreed in Brussels or wherever it may be.
Those two points go somewhat wider than the terms of reference of the proposed Select Committee, and the Leader of the House will see why we feel a good deal of unease about the way in which the terms of reference have been expressed in the motion.
I shall take the argument a little further than that. I mentioned the treaties, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned them in the course of the European Communities Bill debates, and I mentioned regulations and directives, but, as the hon. Member for Holland with Boston reminded us, if we are concerned with influencing the course of events and the evolution of policy in the Communities we cannot be confined to the formal instruments, although they are obviously important.
The Council of Ministers has resolutions which are treated seriously. If anyone is in doubt about that, let them consider the events that led to the "snake in the tunnel" agreement about the narrowing of the movement of margins around our parities in relation to the currencies of the Six. That agreement into which we entered, in May 1972, apparently had very nearly the force of a treaty, and £1,000 million later, and eight weeks later, we were forced to float the £, having found the business of maintaining the narrow margins beyond our power.
It was not a treaty, a regulation or a directive that led to the agreement to


narrow the currency margin. It was a resolution of the Council of Ministers. The whole of the next step of economic and monetary union is large proposals affecting the course of the British economy —namely, the resolutions of March 1971 and March 1972, which delayed the meeting of the summit until last month—which have only the status of resolutions, yet they appear to carry a considerable obligation and to impose a considerable obligation upon the member States.
We would be dealing with only a narrow point if we took literally the words of the motion:
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider procedures for scrutiny of proposals for European Community Secondary Legislation and to make recommendations.
I do not know whether it is the right hon. Gentleman's intention that the Select Committee should be narrowly confined. I hope it is not. In a sense, I hope that there has been some slight misunderstanding on the Government's part about what we wish to do. If that be so, let me assure the right hon. Gentleman that we take the Select Committee very seriously. We consider that it has an enormously important job. We do not think that it can do it properly unless it is clearly understood that it has wide terms of reference.
Can I have a specific assurance that the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of "secondary legislation" includes all the formal processes of the Community? In other words, does it include regulations, directives and decisions, the ancillary treaties relating to the European Communities, and subsidiary matters such as resolutions of the Council of Ministers? Such an assurance will go a considerable way to satisfying me at present.
However, if "secondary legislation" is widened in that way, it will still fall a long way short if we are confined to considering those matters without a proper and full consideration of the impact of membership on the procedures of the House.
I refer to the original words of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on 15th February:
The Government are deeply concerned that Parliament, as well as United Kingdom Ministers, should play its full part when future

Community policies are being formulated. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February 1972; Vol. 831, c. 274.]
That goes a good deal further, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give me the assurance for which I ask.

12.10 a.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Obviously, the Select Committee, if the House decides to set it up, will exercise its own discretion in interpreting its terms of reference. Nevertheless, we must have regard to its terms of reference, and it is important that we should get them right. If there are two or more ways in which those terms can be interpreted, the House and my right hon. Friend, by making our wishes clear, should indicate to the Select Committee how we wish those terms of reference to be interpreted.
I wish to re-emphasise the point made by the right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) that the natural meaning of secondary legislation, as we in this House are accustomed to it, would be statutory instruments. We already have a means of scrutinising those, and they already come to, and can be brought before, the House. I am ready to believe that the term is intended to include, in draft as well as in final form, the three major sorts of law which the Community can make: regulation, directive and decision.
One difficulty arises in connection with the regulation. There are two sorts of regulation. There are the regulations which are made ultimately by the Council of Ministers, but there are also regulations which the Commission makes of its own motion and which are not made by the Council of Ministers. While I can conceive a fairly precise meaning for a draft regulation where that regulation is to come in draft before the Council of Ministers to be made by it, I think that there may be more difficulty in defining what is meant by the draft of a regulation which is to be made by the Commission itself. Presumably there are a number of stages at which such a regulation might be in draft and at which its contents might come to the knowledge of persons outside the Commission. It would be useful to be somewhat clearer than we are at the moment, at what stage in the various cases those


drafts are regarded as proposals for the purposes of the work of the Select Committee.
Unless the drafts come before whatever be the body or means ultimately proposed in a sufficiently malleable form, the scrutiny will be little more than an empty formality. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not overlook the points made by the right hon. Member for Stepney both as to Community decisions of a binding character which do not fall within any of those three classic definitions and also—and this appears to me to be an oversight—the omission in the terms of reference of any word which could conceivably cover treaties or draft treaties.
I understand that treaties are not secondary legislation, whatever they are, but are the primary legislation of the Community. If that be right, it will be necessary for my right hon. Friend tonight, or subsequently, to fulfil the undertaking of the former Chancellor of the Duchy, to move to amend or to extend these terms of reference.
Finally, I wish to say a few sentences about the word "scrutiny". We are accustomed to the word "scrutiny" in the context of what is loosely called the Scrutiny Committee, the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, which scrutinises all the statutory instruments which are made. But my right hon. Friend will be aware how narrowly in that context the word is interpreted. It is interpreted to exclude all questions of policy whatever. Indeed, I think I am right in saying that it is only under our new decision, arrived at a few days ago, that even the question of vires comes within the scope of the scrutiny of the Select Committee.
I do not believe that it can be the intention that the term "scrutiny" should be so understood in these terms of reference. But, if not, it had better be stated plainly—I hope that my right hon. Friend will do so—that scrutiny goes to all matters and all processes which the House itself or any of its Committees might carry out or wish to carry out—that is to say, it includes consideration of policy, consideration of consequences, consideration of implications—and the work of the Select Committee will include the pro-

posal of methods whereby the results of any such scrutiny may in good time be submitted to the House so that the House may, if it wishes, take action upon them.
I emphasise that this is by no means a quibble, since, if that is the intention—I hope that my right hon. Friend can assure the House that it is—we are using, and intending to use, the term "scrutiny" in an entirely new and much wider sense than it has normally been used before. We are, I take it, intending to ask this Select Committee to survey the whole field of the knowledge and control by the House of all proceedings of the European Community which may result in commitments of law or policy binding upon this House. I do not believe that hon. Members, however few may be attending this debate, will be satisfied if in the outcome the Select Committee covers less than that.

12.18 a.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): I think it is the wish of the whole House that the ad hocSelect Committee which it is proposed should consider our procedures for scrutinising proposals for European Community secondary legislation should be set up as quickly as possible.
Perhaps I may deal straightaway with the point about scrutiny which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) has raised. I must tell him that I interpret the word "scrutiny" in the usual parliamentary sense. I do not see why we should try to give its meaning a wider interpretation than we give it at any other time; nor is it my intention that we should give it a narrower meaning than at any other time. The word "scrutiny" means an examination of all the proposals for European Community secondary legislation, and I should have thought that that was a perfectly fair interpretation and one which the House ought to be able to accept.
I ought, perhaps, to point out that it is the establishment of the Committee that we are debating tonight, and, although it is tempting to be led into speculation about the recommendations which the Committee might make, I propose to resist it.
The right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) said the other night:
we shall take very seriously, and will be very diligent in, the Select Committee which we hope will soon be set up to look at the procedures of this House in relation to what goes on in, and what comes out of Brussels. We shall keep a close watch on Ministers and we shall find ways of calling them to account".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 19th December 1972: Vol. 848, c. 1288.]
I regard that as a very proper attitude for the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends, as well as for my right hon. and hon. Friends, to take.
We all want to see this Select Committee set up quickly so that we can speedily establish the new procedures which will be needed. There has been considerable delay, not of the Government's making, in setting up the Committee, and it is now urgently needed. I hope, therefore, that the House will now agree to the motion.
The terms of reference which the Government have proposed for the Select Committee were based upon an amendment which the Opposition tabled to the European Communities Bill. We understood that these terms of reference were acceptable to the Opposition. Had I heard earlier that they might wish them to be worded differently, I should have been glad to consider any alternative proposals. If experience shows that these terms of reference are not correct, I am prepared to look at them again. I give that undertaking to the right hon. Member for Stepney.
My experience of Select Committees so far, which is still a bit green, is that they find ways of discussing pretty well whatever they like anyhow. But we shall see how we get on. At this late stage I hope that the House will feel able to accept the motion.
I think there would be general agreement that our procedures for scrutinising proposals for European Community secondary legislation most urgently need to be studied; that is, while this proposed secondary legislation is still in the draft stage. I make it clear to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West that it is in relation to the draft stage that we think most of the work by this Committee will take place. I think that should be the Committee's first priority.
My hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) asked me to make clear the meaning of the term "secondary legislation". It means the regulations, directives and decisions enacted by the institutions of the Community on the authority of the treaties. The treaties themselves rank as primary legislation. I think, therefore, that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that the terms of reference are appropriately widely drawn.
The right hon. Member for Stepney asked whether the arrangements for parliamentary scrutiny of proposals by the European Commission for significant changes in the Community treaties would be matters into which the Committee could inquire. Such proposals could be scrutinised by Parliament in the same way as proposals by the Commission to the Council of Ministers for secondary legislation. This matter could, therefore, certainly be considered by the Select Committee.
Furthermore, any amendment to the treaties would require ratification, and Parliament would no doubt have the opportunity of further debates at that stage in addition to any scrutiny at the proposal stage. I hope that that explanation has made that point clear.
I think it would he right for the Committee to give its prime attention to those draft instruments on which the House would wish to express its views. This suggests that the category of drafts within the scope of any new machinery ought to be the drafts of regulations and directives proposed to be made by the Council of Ministers. I think that in some ways this would give the House an opportunity to discuss policy, which often it does not have under the present procedures.
I should like to quote an example which my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston has probably heard me give before. At the moment the House of Commons has no opportunity to discuss the Farm Price Review until the announcement is made from this Dispatch Box as to what it is. It always leaks to the papers a few days before, but there is no opportunity for the House to discuss it. Here for the first time there will be an opportunity for draft regulations made by the Commission for recommendation to the Council of Ministers to be discussed by a Committee of this


House. So the House will be able to make its views known before any decision is reached.
That, I believe, in no way detracts from the sovereignty of Parliament. In fact, I believe that it adds considerably to its sovereignty, and certainly to the scrutiny powers of hon. Members.

Mr. Powell: The Leader of the House referred to regulations made by the Council of Ministers. Does he include the other category of regulations to which I referred which are made by the Commission?

Mr. Prior: I am coming to that. My next paragraph says that the Committee may not wish to give the same attention to Commission instruments since the Government will have no formal ability to influence the exercise of powers delegated to the Commission, nor to Council decisions of a quasi-judicial character addressed to individual persons, firms or member States. But, and I emphasise this, that is entirely a matter for the Select Committee. Its terms of reference are sufficiently wide so that it can, if it likes, discuss this.
I have been looking at the number of instruments. The annual volume of Community instruments varies considerably. In 1971, which was a period of modest activity, there were about 3,000 instruments, of which about 90 per cent. were issued by the Commission. Many of those instruments were concerned merely with the detailed determination of levies and refunds under the CAP. These things go up and down every day. The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) sometimes chides us with the fact that he would need a lorry to bring in all the Community legislation. He would find himself no better placed if he were to take home every night all the legislation that this House has passed or has dealt with. Most of these instruments are very temporary, but there will be nothing to stop the Committee from looking at them if it wishes. I think that the Committee will find itself getting pretty bored if it does look at them, but that will be for the Committee to decide, not for me.
The novelty of the new arrangements will arise especially from the wish of

Parliament to scrutinise these instruments in draft. Because Britain is only one of the members of the Community it will certainly happen, sometimes at any rate, that the draft instruments scrutinised by the new machinery and the instruments finally negotiated in and approved by the Council of Ministers may differ in some respects. This again is obvious, because it may well be that a Minister will listen to and take note of the discussions on a draft instrument, but when he gets to Brussels or Luxembourg he may find himself having to negotiate for something else that he requires. Therefore, there will in all probability be changes to the draft instrument but I do not think that the House should worry about that. When the instrument is approved and the regulation comes in the ordinary procedures of the House will apply.

Mr. Powell: What are they?

Mr. Prior: It would become part of our law but the House would have the opportunity either to ask questions on a statement or to debate it, if it wished, in the ordinary way. I should have thought that that was a reasonable position for the House to be in.
I accept entirely that all this entails a major constitutional change. I do not accept that it means that Parliament's voice will, therefore, be any the less effective. On the contrary, Parliament will have the opportunity to make its views known to Ministers and to the country before important decisions are taken. If Ministers are subsequently unable to negotiate instruments which give full expression to those views they will have to explain to the House why they agreed to what they did agree to. I believe this to be a highly democratic process, and I hope that the House will agree to it.
It is now up to the Select Committee to recommend to us machinery which will enable the House of Commons, with all its traditions and all its authority, to exercise these powers in the most effective possible way.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider procedures for scrutiny of proposals for European Community Secondary Legislation and to make recommendations.


And the Committee was nominated of Mr. Brian Batsford, Mr. Eric Deakins, Mr. Michael Foot, Sir John Foster, Mr. Michael Hamilton, Mr. Robert Hicks, Mr. Russell Johnston, Mr. Angus Maude, Mr. Ronald King Murray, Mr. Ian Percival, Miss Quennell, Mr. Peter Shore. and Mrs. Shirley Williams.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House; to adjourn from place to place; to report from time to time; and to report Minutes of Evidence from time to time.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to confer with any Committee appointed by the Lords to consider the same matter.

Ordered,
That Four be the Quorum of the Committee.—[Mr. John Stradling Thomas.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John Stradling Thomas.]

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES (SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT PAYMENTS)

12.31 a.m.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: I am grateful for the opportunity of raising the subject of supplementary benefits in industrial disputes, although at this late hour I apologise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for keeping him back at this fag end of the Session. I have sought for some time to introduce this matter on the Adjournment, but I apologise to my hon. Friend that it has come at this late stage.
Nevertheless, this is a matter which has been, and is, causing growing concern to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of constituents up and down the country in recent years. There is very good reason for this. Until five or six years ago the sum total of benefit paid to those involved in industrial disputes and their dependants barely exceeded £1 million over a period of 10 years. There were only three years prior to and including 1966 when the total of benefit paid in industrial disputes in a single year exceeded £100,000.
Since 1966, however, the whole situation has changed fundamentally. In 1967 the total paid out by the Supplementary

Benefits Commission in industrial disputes amounted to £380,000. In 1968 it amounted to £335,000, in 1969 to £750,000, in 1970 to £1½ million, and in 1971 to E4·7 million. The figure so far this year is in excess of £8 million.
We must bear in mind that these payments arise only in the case of the more long-drawn-out industrial disputes, lasting, broadly, 12 days and more. By their definition these are the sort of disputes which cause most inconvenience to those not directly involved in them. They are the disputes which often do most damage to our reputation as suppliers to overseas customers, and to our reputation as a magnet for international investment. In consequence, they are the disputes which jeopardise so often the long-term prospects for employment of not only those involved in the disputes but many others who are not directly involved.
Nevertheless, it was not unreasonable to expect the mass of the public who are not involved in such disputes to accept an obligation to finance payments to strikers' dependants in cases of genuine need at a time when those payments were running at a rate of, perhaps, £100,000 a year or less. But the situation today is totally different. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services told my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Ralph Howell) in the summer, the present position in this country is without parallel in any other advanced industrial country. No other country provides taxpayer-financed benefits for the sustaining of industrial disputes to anything approaching the level which we do.
The normal practice is that unions should be expected to finance strikes which they call. These were the considerations, or some of the considerations, which led my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to introduce the Social Security Act 1971. It had two main provisions: to reduce the disregards—the normal sums, the principal strike payments and the tax refunds —which were disregarded in calculating a family's entitlement to benefit from £4.35p to £ 1 a week, and, secondly, to provide that the tide-over payments after return to work should be recoverable, rather than being a direct outlay by the taxpayer.
My hon. Friend, in introducing the legislation, told us in column 59 on 26th April 1971 that he was unable to say what the reductions in the outlay of supplementary benefit would be as a result of the legislation but that if the Bill, now the 1971 Act, had been law during 1970 it would have saved £1,250,000. As the total bill was only £1,500,000, the calculation meant that the bill would have been reduced by five-sixths, but we find that, far from being reduced by five-sixths, it has virtually doubled this year since the passage of the Act.
Why? There are two aspects. It is clear that arrangement for the recovery of tide-over payments after the resumption of work has functioned reasonably effectively but that the arrangement for reducing the disregards has had almost totally a reverse effect. This is because the reducing of the disregards, unaccompanied, as it was, by any change in the rules about entitlement to supplementary benefit, has had the effect of encouraging unions which could well afford to pay strike pay not to do so.
In the case of the National Union of Mineworkers' strike earlier this year we had a remarkable example. It declined to pay strike pay and also managed to prevent refund of taxation until after the strike so that that would not fall to be disregarded either. In consequence, the drain on union funds which used to be an encouragement to an early settlement has disappeared and the situation is worse than it was before the passage of the 1971 Act.
However, my right hon. Friend indicated in the course of Second Reading that he would keep the matter under review. He said:
This is not to say that the Government may not decide at some stage to make some changes".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th April 1971; Vol. 816, c. 53.]
That is, further changes in the position.
Following the experience of the miners' strike, my right hon. Friend said that the Department was instituting a review of the 1971 Act. We have waited. We have had statements virtually at three-weekly intervals from my right hon. Friend and his hon. Friend to the effect that the review is progressing. Nine

months have passed and the bills have piled up. We are still awaiting the outcome.
Recently my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, in a speech in London, seemed to imply that the Government felt that this was not the suitable moment for action on this front. I was relieved this morning to receive from my right hon. Friend a letter in which he assured me that the Chief Secretary's statement was not to be seen in any sense as
a formal statement on Government policy. … I assure you that no decisions have yet been taken. … We have not yet completed our review. The review is not a screen behind which we are hiding a decision already taken to do nothing.
I hope that is so. Frankly, I do not think we would be at all well advised to be deterred from taking action by the fear that this might in some way incommode Mr. Vic Feather or his colleagues in the TUC and discourage them from participating in further tripartite discussions. I do not believe there is a prospect of Mr. Hugh Scanlon or Mr. Jack Jones signing a piece of paper with any validity on the subject of income control, any more than I believe in fairies. However, this is not the moment to discuss that issue.
If this is not regarded as the time to take a decision, I think we are entitled to ask my hon. Friend what will be the right moment. It seems improbable that the desire for some form of tripartite negotiation will not be with us for some time to come. We should recognise that the argument that we sometimes hear from the benches opposite that the escalation of industrial dispute subsidies is a consequence of the Industrial Relations Act is utter nonsense. Any examination of the figures shows that the escalation began long before the passage of that Act and long before the arrival in office of the present Government. Between 1962 and 1967 the average number of stoppages of more than 12 days' duration was 65 per annum. In 1968 the number was 104, in 1969 it was 417 and in 1970 555. The escalation had occurred long before the present Government took office. The same applies to the number of days lost by stoppages where supplementary benefits were a factor.
It is clear that the escalation started with the passage of the 1966 Act. It started at that point for a very clear


and specific reason, that prior to the passage of the 1966 Social Security Act the onus was on the individual striker to establish the need of his family for supplementary benefit, but in Section 10 of the Social Security Act 1966 supplementary benefit was laid down as a right. The consequence was that from then onwards the onus has been on the Supplementary Benefits Commission to prove that supplementary benefit should not be paid.
My proposal, therefore, has for some time been that we should, in the first place, recognise, as does every other advanced industrial country, that the fundamental obligation in an industrial dispute to finance the families of those involved rests fairly and squarely on the union. Secondly, supplementary benefit should be payable only where individual need is established by the striker, as was the position before the passage of the 1966 Act.
Of course, I do not suggest that such changes would usher in a new era of industrial peace, but I believe that they would do far more to combat the pressures of inflation than a thousand and one nights of tripartite talks. They would help at the margin to encourage employers to resist what they regarded as intolerably inflationary claims, whereas today they do not feel that they have a chance with the dice loaded so heavily against them. They would encourage what is often the majority of those involved in a potential industrial dispute, who do not wish to come out, to resist the pressures from a minority of extremists. They have precious little incentive to do that at present.
Such changes would also encourage greater public willingness to resist the pressures of a highly inflationary claim backed by a national industrial dispute. It is pointless to call upon the public to stand up to blackmail, as my right hon. Friends have from time to time, when the public are being required by law to subsidise the blackmailers on a massive scale.
Finally, and in some ways perhaps almost as important as the rest of my points put together, my right hon. Friends should not under-estimate the unease in the country about the scale of abuse of the supplementary benefits system in industrial disputes. Unless we are prepared to deal with it as a matter of

urgency, there is a danger that we shall bring the entire supplementary benefits system into disrepute. That would do far greater damage to many others who are much more demanding claimants on the system than are those who are striking today, in most cases for their own material gain.

12.48 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) has expressed concern which is widespread throughout the country. The Government are aware of it and take it seriously.
We are not talking tonight about strikes as such, about their prevalence, the damage they cause, their cost to those who work and observe their contracts or the price paid by innocent people, including pensioners who are badly affected by inflation. We are dealing with a part of this wider problem, namely the response of the social security system to a strike. This raises complex issues of both social policy and industrial relations. In this context the Government's aim is to find the right balance between providing reasonable financial support for wives and children against hardship during a strike and not giving the militants a financial base to resort to strike action regardless of the consequences.
My hon. Friend has said that supplementary benefit was justified where there is genuine need. It is a matter of great concern that some elements in the claimants' unions and some political extremists have seen fit to describe supplementary benefit as the greatest strike fund of all and to encourage employees involved in some disputes deliberately to rely on supplementary benefit instead of looking to their union or other alternative sources of finance. In doing this these disruptive elements have not stopped short of trying to involve the staff of local social security offices in confrontations over what they describe as their rights.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has made it clear how greatly we deplore activities of this kind, as, we believe, do most people, not least the moderate trade unionists who accept that social security benefits are not a proper method of financing strikes. Although I know my hon.


Friend is not under any misapprehension on this score, there is widespread misunderstanding outside the House about what exactly is and is not available by way of supplementary benefit to people involved in strikes during the dispute and after the resumption of work.
I shall put the facts on record, and I refer to the Ministry of Social Security Act 1966 and the Social Security Act 1971. A striker's personal requirements are to be disregarded for the duration of the stoppage so that benefit is normally only payable for the requirements of any dependants and for reasonable housing costs. The most common resource available to a striker's family—family allowance—counts in full as income against his supplementary benefit requirements and any PAYE refunds and trade union dispute benefit available to a striker's family counts as income, subject only to a disregard of £1 of the total amount. Payments under Section 13 of the 1966 Act may be made entirely at the discretion of the Supplementary Benefits Commission to single strikers who are in urgent need. In deciding whether to make any such payments the commission is not bound by any of the normal rules in determining a claimant's requirements and resources.
Since 3rd April this year any payment for supplementary benefit made in the fortnight following a return to work is recoverable, normally by means of a deduction from pay by the employer. Further, supplementary benefit will not normally be paid in the first fortnight of a dispute when employees have their first week's wages and a week's "wages in hand" available to them. Nor is benefit paid to meet commitments incurred before a strike began, such as hire-purchase instalments, rent arrears or outstanding gas or electricity bills.
Because we were concerned about the exploitation of supplementary benefit the Government immediately set about reviewing the existing supplementary benefit provisions when we came into office. We quickly introduced two important modifications in the Social Security Act 1971. We decided first that the practice which had grown up over the years of disregarding, on a discretionary basis, a striker's personal income up to the level of his own requirements—then £4·35 a

week and now £5·45—must be ended because it negated the provisions of the 1966 Act that a striker's requirements are to be ignored. The position was therefore regularised by giving a statutory disregard of £1 in the 1971 Act.
Secondly, any payment of supplementary benefit made following the resumption of work after a trade dispute was made recoverable by the employer from wages so that it is no longer advantageous for an ex-striker to get non-repayable supplementary benefit on return to work instead of a "sub" or an advance of wages from his employer which he must then repay.
The precise effect of these two changes made in the 1971 Act is difficult to establish. Clearly a reduction in the disregard will have resulted in less supplementary benefit being paid to claimants who had PAYE refunds and dispute benefit available to them. But the extent of the saving is not known. Some commentators have suggested that the result has been to discourage unions from giving strike pay, but this has not yet been shown to be generally true, nor can the motive always be ascribed to the social security provisions.
As to the recovery of post-dispute payments, the position is that between the beginning of April this year, when this provision became effective, and the end of November £242,000 has been paid. Since recovery of payments is normally spread over 10 weeks, the full amount has not yet been recovered, but there is no reason why most of it should not be eventually recovered.
My hon. Friend claimed that the 1966 Act started the rot, but he also said that the problem was deeper than that. It is true that the 1966 Act emphasised the concept of entitlement to supplementary benefit as opposed to a grant of assistance, and supplementary benefit scales have risen annually and quite substantially in the meantime. Obviously these improvements in our social security arrangements made it more attractive for strikers' families to rely on supplementary benefit when they had insufficient other resources, but it is no less true now than it was before 1966 that any resources are taken into account in accordance with the normal rules. Indeed in one respect the position now is less favourable for strikers as the 1971 Act reduced to £1 the


striker's disregard—that is, the amount disregarded from his personal resources.
My hon. Friend will know that the Government are engaged in a thoroughgoing and extensive review of all aspects of supplementary benefit for strikers. He has referred to reports of a speech by my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and the letter which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to him. My right hon. Friend made clear in that letter that what my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary said was in no sense a formal statement of Government policy but was merely an attempt to indicate to those at the conference he was addressing some of the conflicting considerations that Ministers must bear in mind in deciding what policy is appropriate.
The Government's review has not been limited only to the operation of the changes introduced by the 1971 Act. It has embraced all aspects of supple-

mentary benefit payments during disputes. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that a review of this kind involves complex considerations of social policy and industrial relations which cannot be settled quickly. There is no self-evidently right and generally acceptable new policy, and the Government are, therefore, right in such circumstances to take what they regard as sufficient time to ensure that, if a change is to be proposed to Parliament, any alternative arrangements provide a firm base for the future.
I therefore ask for my hon. Friend's forbearance. The review is not yet complete, but I give him an unqualified assurance that an appropriate statement will be made when the Government come to a decision.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to One o'clock.